Personal Jesus
by NovaStars42
Summary: Sika hires a pair of mercenaries to help her out of a bind. She's sure she's in deep trouble but she's about to get in a whole lot deeper with a cult preist ranting in her ear about sin. [set in the Road To The Ninja alternate universe] (friendship centric)
1. Chapter 1: Twisted Sister

Personal Jesus

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To occur in the 'road to the ninja' movie alternate universe

Almost everything is the same, except Hidan is a 'good guy' and Obito isn't running Akatsuki

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Wet feet stepped silently over dew covered ground. As if darkness wasn't enough, tall grass and cat tails taller than her head shielded her presence. Using the river as her guide out of the village, she found her destination in a field about a mile away. A large oak tree obstructed what should have been a full moon.

She slung a coil of rope from around her shoulder and tied it to the trees middle and then proceeded to climb with the end of it in her mouth. Bark bit into her hands, but it wouldn't matter anymore she reasoned, not in a few minutes. Stopping at the first branch and climbing out, she took in her environment as she tied the rope. This was a peaceful place, off the beaten path, that's been the reason she choose it. No one could stop her now, and if she was lucky, no one would find her after. Her body could become part of the earth. There wasn't anything to say, she mused, slipping the rope around her neck.

He watched her jump, from afar. She hadn't even known he was trailing her.

If anything, she'd just committed a sin, and he wasn't about to stand for that. Seconds later, she was laying on the ground. He wasn't sure if he'd made it in time, but as he bent over, feeling her neck, her wrist, her ankle, for Jashin's sake, for a pulse, he thought he been a second too late. He tried once more too see if she was alive, pressing his ear to her chest, and found not only was her heart beating, but she was breathing too, faintly, but she was breathing.

If she wanted to die so badly, he'd glad to help her along. He pulled a long metal rod from his person and cast out the pointed spike from its hiding place inside, the rod becoming a sturdy pike. He cut his hand and drew a circle on the ground with his right foot with the blood that fell and raised the weapon above his head to deal a finishing blow when he was cut off.

"Hidan, we don't have time for another one of your rituals," came a gruff, deep voice. The owner of the voice appeared next to him seconds later.

"You asshole! Screw off, can't you see I'm busy? Seriously!" The man with the weapon, Hidan, hissed, pushing his silver hair back with his free, unbloodied hand.

"Hold your tongue before I do it for you," the taller, masked man growled.

The girl, who'd been out cold up until this point, was waking up, and she woke up more than angry. While the other two bickered, she was gaining her barings. She looked up at the man standing over her, at the other man in the clearing, and then at the cut rope hanging from the tree she should have been in.

"It's a fucking sin to kill herself! I'm doing her a favor!" Hidan shouted, his hands wide out as if to say, what the hell are you talking about?

"Fucking sin or not, if I want to die, I want to die!" She shouted, the ligature marks on her neck turning red and bruising, "you stupid fucking son of a bitch! How dare you!"

"She's alive," the taller one muttered.

"No shit!" Hidan shouted, "and if you'd sit still you mouthy bitch, I'll kill you right here, right now!"

"Oh, go fuck yourself! My life is mine to take!" She yelled, sitting up, "screw off!"

"Fucking cunt!" The silver haired man shouted, stabbing his pike for her heart, but she was quick out of the way. She took off running with him close on her tail. He pulled a red, three bladed scythe from his back, and slashed at her, missing her skin by a hair and ripping the shirt off of her back. She looked behind her, changing directions quickly to avoid another slash. Those black cloaks, red clouds, wait a second, she'd just read about them!

"I know you guys! Your those Akatsuki mercenaries!" She shouted, dodging another failed slash. If he wouldn't have been so pissed, if his aim wouldn't have been off, and if she wouldn't have been so fast, he would have hacked her in half. When he finally caught up to her, he threw her down using the bunt end of his weapon and throwing her onto her back between the blades of tall, wet grass. With a crazed look on his face, he muttered something about praying to god, he rose the scythe above his head, blade thirsty for her skin.

"I wanna hire you!" She shouted, shielding her face from his weapon. Suddenly the strike of the scythe was stopped. Long, black threadlike tendrils wrapped around it and it's weirder, throwing the blade away behind him.

"Kakuzu! What the fuck!"

"She said she wants to hire us shit for brains," Kakuzu muttered, "what do you have to offer?"

"Uh, money," she stuttered though lost breathe. Her chest felt like it was on fire!

"How much?" The tall man asked, approaching his partner and possible new client.

"Uh, well, I don't know," she stuttered yet again, and the masked man sighed.

"No deal," he replied, and the other man got quite exited to resume his rage fueled murder attempt.

"It's a lot of money! I just uh, I don't know how much, uh, it's a lot!" She nearly shouted, watching the silver haired mans face change yet again to distain. Kakuzu seemed to conciser it.

"What's the job?" He asked, releasing his hold on his partner

"I need," she sucked in a breathe, "I need to find my father. He's been missing since I was young, he left me with my mother and I-"

"We don't need your life story, where is he?" Kakuzu asked, cutting her short. He was a man of few words and he liked other people the same way.

"If I knew I wouldn't have these," she seethed, pointing to her neck. The older man rolled his eyes and started for the road, his cloak catching the grass as he stepped away.

"Hidan, get your things. We're leaving. Where are you staying?"

"Oh come on!" The silver haired man groaned childishly. The silver haired man stared at his partner a moment before walking off after him like a lost puppy, grumbling something about ruining another offering all the way.

"I live in a brothel," the girl muttered under her breathe. The comment earned a humorous glance from her newly hired, scythe wielding mercenary.

"Shut up! It's not my fault!" She exclaimed, crossing her arms over her chest.

"I didn't say anything," he smirked, stifling a laugh, "What's your name?"

"Sika," she answered.

"Like the deer?" He returned, eyebrows raised. She was getting more and more interesting by the second.

"Yeah, like the deer," she grunted, her bare foot scraping itself on a broken stick, "hey, jerk face, carry me."

"Like hell!" Hidan really did laugh this time, "my partner might be a money grubbing whore, but that's not in my job description, in fact, neither is hunting down some dickhead for a prostitute, but I guess when lot and money are in the same sentence, right you miser son of a bitching-"

"Hidan! Silence!" Kakuzu bellowed, and the entire country side complied.

"When we get to town, collect your things. We are not spending the night in a whore house," Kakuzu droned, about a mile down the road, the town was in sight.

"I want to get on the road tonight, I don't have anything worth bringing," Sika answered.

"As much as I'd love to, Hidan and I have some business to attend to," the taller man spoke, causing the shorter to scoff. Sika didn't understand, but as long as she didn't have to go home, it didn't matter. She supposed she'd have to hide though, her mistress would be coming after her any time now.

" I don't have any money," she mumbled, and it was true. She saw a lot of cash but never got to keep any of it.

"Add it to your bill," Hidan huffed, shoving his way past his new boss and partner to stomp off angry into the streets. Kakuzu watched him go, a disapproving look set on his visible features.

"What's he so pissed about?" She asked, almost in a whisper. Kakuzu laughed rudely.

"About your money," she mumbled again, "my dad is loaded. I'm sure he'll pay you guys."

"He'd better pay me, or you will with your life," Kakuzu growled, leading her to a not so great part of town, not far from the red light district, to a cheep hotel, "I need some information to go on."

She sighed as she drug her feet after him, and as he guided her into the hotel they'd be renting from. It wasn't anything special, but it was better than the brothel. Sika mulled over the information in her head, climbing onto the bed to cross her legs as he hung up his red clouded coat and pulled out a sealing scroll.

"I moved here from Kiri after my mother kicked off on a mission, I sort of just, uh, well," she muttered. Without saying it, she implied she'd been left with no choice but to resort to working at the whore house, "anyway, he was a pretty talented swordsman and a shinobi. He was a jonin, and we lived pretty high. My mom was pretty talented too, but not like him."

"If you came from shinobi, why arnt you a shinobi?" The masked man asked, wondering why this girl couldn't find her damn father herself, why she had to be bothering his old ass, disturbing his peace and such.

"Mom said it was too dangerous," she sighed, clearing her throat, "hey, do I get to sleep on the bed?"

"Left side," the older man grunted, excusing himself to the bathroom for a shower. Sika shrugged. When he returned, he was dressed in what Sika assumed to be clean cloths, and much to her distain, mask still intact. She'd hoped she'd get to see behind it eventually. He retrieved a book and pencil from the sealing scroll. He sat down on the bed, leaning on the head board, folded the book cover over, and started writing. Sika watched him a while before she asked what he was doing.

"Accounting," he replied, short and sweet.

"You don't want to talk or anything?" She offered, watching him from her spot at the foot of the bed. He shook his head no.

"Can I see under the mask?" She questioned.

"No. Keep asking questions and see where you end up," he growled, and silence fell over the room for a while until the younger mercenary joined them. The first words out of his mouth were,

"Your letting the fucking slut share the bed with you, seriously?"

"Your just mad because I got here first," Sika replied, sticking her tongue out at him. He narrowed his eyes, taking off his red clouded cloak to reveal his scarred, shirtless abdomen decorated with shallow stab wounds.

"A little help here?" He nearly shouted, scaring Sika off the bed to retrieve a towel. When she returned he was sitting in an uncomfortable looking chair on the side of the room. Handing him said towel, a silver pendant around his neck caught her eye.

"What is that?" She asked, going to touch it, only to have her hand slapped away.

"It's a connection to God," he returned, pressing the towel on to a low riding wound, hissing in pain all the while.

"I was a nun before I was a harlot, I've never seen anything like that in either profession," Sika replied, folding her arms. He asked for another towel to which she obliged, wetting a hand towel for him to wash the blood off of his skin.

"I worship the Devine Lord Jashin, God of death, destruction and self sacrifice. Though him, I invented my own special immortality," he replied, moving on to another wound higher up.

"So what? You can't die?" She asked, watching him, looking very serious as he nodded. She nearly died laughing. "Your ridiculous!"

"Shut the fuck up you dumb cunt! It's real!" Hidan shouted back, earning a dangerous look from Kakuzu. If the Jashinist started something he had to finish, well, Hidan probably wouldnt be able to feel anything lower than his eyes. Kakuzu knew his money ticket was only good alive, so he better warn his partner not to skin her alive now.

"On a scale of 1 to brain washed, your Jim Jones, I swear," she said, whipping a tear from her eye and going back to sit on the bed.

"I'm not brain washed! One day, all you heathens will see, seriously," Hidan grumbled, afraid to yell at the girl now.

"Whatever," Sika rolled her eyes, "can you do any cool stuff? Your mercenaries, you gotta be able to do cool stuff, right?"

"Define cool," Hidan grunted, having to stick a towel into a larger hole near his shoulder to stop the blood. He looked up, and seeing she was not about to explain, sighed.

"Yeah I guess. I've got the scythe, and I have a sacrificing ritual I use when fighting, all it takes is a drop of blood. My skin turns black and outlines my bones," he boasted, "Kakuzu might have the thread things, but I can send a guy flying and change direction in midair, all at once."

"Do you know about a jutsu called Sweet Sakura Mist?" She asked. Very suddenly, the aura around her and the mood of the room shifted.

"I've seen it," Kakuzu interjected. In his ninety-some years he had seen a lot, but that plant and water based jutsu stuck with him,"Why?"

"No reason, I just, I've always wanted to see it," Sika mumbled, and it was clear to Kakuzu something was up, but he didn't mention it.

"Hey!" Hidan shouted, angry the attention had been shifted away from him, "what is it? This flowery, misty thing?"

"It's a paralysis ninjutsu, the caster uses a sweet smelling mist to immobilize their opponent, however, as soon as someone touches the victim, it's over. Useful for escaping, but not much else," Kakuzu explained.

"Where did you see it performed?" Sika asked, twisting around.

"On the boarder with grass country some years ago, a man used it on a pair of swordsmen," the masked man answered.

"You've meet my father then!" Sika gasped, "he invented it! Only he my mother and I," she paused as if her brain needed to buffer, "Do you know what happened to him after?"

Kakuzu shook his head.

"He could be anywhere by now," Hidan noted.

"It's the only clue we've got," Kakuzu sighed.

xXx

Sika's feet touching down on the floor was enough to wake the ninja in the room. Though Kakuzu lay still to listen, Hidan opened his eyes and watched her though the darkness as she stripped her shirt off and left herself in a lacey bandeau that exposed the tops of her breasts. Her bare feet thumped quietly on the wood flooring and the door squeaked a little as she closed it behind herself. The thumps grew louder as she turned and ran down the hall until eventually they disappeared.

"What should we do?" Hidan asked quietly, his tone low and tired. He sat up straight in the chair he'd slumped over in and cracked his neck.

"Get up and go after her. I'll be along," the miser returned and moments later the jashinist disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

He reappeared on the roof top, eyes scanning the lantern lit streets for the back of the girls head. He finally found her, walking around a corner. She turned down another street, this one lit entirely in red. It reoccurred to him she'd said she was a prositute, and he didn't doubt it after a cow of a woman came out of a whore house and grabbed her by the wrist.

Hidan jumped from one roof to the other and dropped down from the building, he shoved his hands in his pockets and got a gander at the place before he entered. Women wearing clothing (if you could call it that) made from strings greeted him with smilies and playful attitudes, though he stood far enough away from them that he wouldnt be touched. A drunk man staggered inside moments before him and they'd practically ate him alive with their hands as they guided him in the door. Not that these girls weren't pretty or enticing, but Hidan had swore off sex, and he wished there was a commandment against this in his religion, but if he had to go inside he had to go inside. Whatever Sika was doing had better be pretty damn important. Begrudgingly the jashinist strode in, brushing off the girls and giving them a dirty look as he passed.

The building smelled like sweat and sex, the humidity was high and all of the light bulbs had been replaced with ones of color save for one over the fat woman from the street. She sat at a podium in the middle of the room and behind her he could see the girls in the changing room though an open door.

"Can I help you?" The Madame drawled, looking up from a magazine. She did a double take at him and after realizing he was a man, painted a Cheshire grin on her sleazy face. "Oh, my apologies sir, how could I be of service?"

Hidan chewed his cheek for a moment before he answered, "yeah, I wanna talk to Sika."

"I'm very sorry we don't have a, oh, oh you mean," she paused, her grin widening as she drummed her perfectly manicured nails on the podium, "I'm not used to men asking for my girls by real name. I hope you'd know, sir, I do not allow my girls to date."

Hidan scoffed and made a rude comment about the nature of the building and the portly woman herself which the Madame tried hard to ignore. Now forcing her smilie she lead him back and up a flight of stairs to a ten by ten room with only a bed. Sika was flung into the room moments later.

"Oh no, please," she whined, eyes like dinner plates and her legs trembling. They'd left her cloths on, the bandeau wrinkled and her shorts that showed too much leg, though now she looked tired and her hair looked wet with grease and sweat and who knows what else.

"All that stuff I said earlier, I'm sorry for it, please," she pleaded, "just go on, I give up on my father, I don't need your assistance anymore. And, and you, you don't want me, I'm disgusting, look," she said, pointing out a darkening stain on her croch.

"Yeah that is pretty fucking gross..." The jashinist trailed off, "I don't understand why you wanna sin like this, first you try to kill yourself now your whoring yourself out again?"

"Oh come on," she sighed, "don't do this please."

"No, I'm gonna do this. Sex out of wedlock isn't a sin, but sex for money is. Lord Jashin will show you the way. He will forgive your sin Sika! But only now if you repent them," the priest replied, "I can show you the way."

"I get it," the woman said ripping off her top and unbuttoning her shorts, "you wanna have some kind of weird ass kinky sex. Okay god, punish me."

The jashinist gazed at her body but not in longing. Her ass was red with a clear imprint of a hand and the ligature marks on her neck had bruised a dark cosmic purple. Hidan didn't feel bad for anyone, but he might have felt a little concern for her.

"You two get your shit together," a gruff voice came and seconds later the door opened, Kakuzu barged in and slammed the door behind him.

"Put your top on," he commanded, his voice seething anger, "and Hidan stop your yammering. I didn't tell you to conduct a church sermon, I told you to fallow her."

"Whatever old man," Hidan huffed. Kakuzu took the girl up by her hand, threads locking them together and yanked her face to face.

"Just what exactly do you think your doing?"

"I, I, " she stammered, "I don't need any more help. I decided to stay here."

"Lier," he shouted, giving her a violent shake.

"I came to get some kind of money to pay you!" The girl shouted back, her eyes clenching shut in fear. The banker seemed to consider it. She informed him of a twenty in her panties but told her to hang on to it a while longer after he judged her to be dirty.

"I was just thinking, what if we never find my father, I, uh, Im afraid is all," she murmured, averting her now slightly open eyes.

"I have never been unable to find someone. I know every nook and cranny and if I don't, I have someone else that does. When you hired me, you agreed to my conditions, condition number one is you cannot fire me," Kakuzu had had enough, his lust for money was the only thing keeping him from killing the scrawny girl, "whatever it is you need here, get it."

Before the older man could finish his threats, the door opened yet again to reveal a big burley man carrying a night stick. His uniform and posture suggested he was the buildings bouncer.

"These guys bothering you, sugar?" The man asked, his voice deeper than Kakuzu's. Sika shook her head but the man wouldnt budge.

"The misses says there's something goin' on up here. You boys ain't puttin' our merchandise in harms way now are you?"

"it's okay Hiro, really. They aren't hurting me," Sika pressed, she knew if they were going to make an escape they couldn't have this meat head on their tail.

"I beg to differ," the bouncer replied, and twisted the club he held in his hand and pulled the end off to reveal a double edged sword. Before anyone else could move, Sika noticed a growing wet spot on the bouncers shirt over his heart, seconds later Kakuzu's tentacles tore though the flesh and the skin, pulling the man's still beating heart from his chest. As the body fell to the ground and the tentacle thread pulled away, Sika realized Kakuzu had used her to channel the thread. A line of it ran down the right side of her body, out of view of the bouncer and down the floor boards where it turned and went to the door frame to kill the bigger man. She hadn't even felt it touch her skin.

"Oh my god," Sika gaped, watching as Kakuzu pulled the heart into his person and she thought she might puke.

"I'll dispose of this. Hidan, take her back to the hotel. Don't open the door for anyone," the banker warned, and then hefted the man's dead body up and left with it though the same window he'd used to get in down the hall. The pair needed to get out of here, and fast. Nevermind the blood spatter on the walls, the floor was soaked and a trail of the red sticky liquid trailed in droplets down the hall.

"Come on, we don't got all night," Hidan huffed, starting out into the hall and pulling her along with him.

"I need my stuff from downstairs," Sika interjected.

"Don't care," the preist drawled, after she stopped in her tracks he was forced to turn and look at her or drag her. He didn't want to do either, but he figured hearing her out was better than pulling along her dead weight.

"Unless you wanna clean this up, I need my stuff," she growled, pointing yet again to the wet spot in her pants. Hidan paled.

"Okay, okay, fine," the jashinist spat, "where's your stuff?"

"I have a room in the basement. And there's a closet in the madame's room, I need a pack of, uh nevermind she said, beginning to look quite nervous, "I'll that stuff, go the opposite way down this hall, down two flights, tell the girls I'm getting out."

Sika turned and the jashinist let loose of her hand, they parted ways, the girl moving much faster than the man. She pushed past men and other whores as she tried to forum some kind of pathetic excuse why she needed to go into the owner's office. Her face lit up for just a second as she came up with the mealy mouthed reason she skipped her birth control pill that day and needed it now. In all actuality she just needed some for the road.

However Sika was in luck. She snuck in to the room without incident and snuck out with a couple hundred little pink pills in her pocket. There'd been a big box of the little wheels and she'd just started packing her pockets.

"Payback for all that fucking shit.." she mumbled, trailing off as she exited the room. Hidan poked his head out of another doorway as she emerged, and as they meet in the hall and ducked into another room, he shoved a pink bag into her arms and closed the door.

"Now what?" He asked, looking more irritated than anything. Sika imagined the girls hadn't given him a warm welcome.

"The front door is the only way in and out," she replied, shoving the pills into the bag from her pocket. She noticed the girls had sent along a few things that weren't hers, a bar of chocolate, extra soap, hair ties, those sorts of things. She made a mental note to try and get a few more of these girls out if here if she ever got the chance, "can't you just kill the bitch?"

"I'm not supposed to do anything illegal in plain sight. It'd look bad on my organization," he answered. A knock at the door prevented any further conversation.

"Finished?" A gruff voice asked.

Sika turned and looked at him, shaking her head no and making a slicing motion across her neck as if to say they'd be dead. The person at the door knocked again. 'Fallow my lead' Sika mouthed, and in her best actor voice moaned as loud as she could.

"Yes!" She screeched, and made a motion for Hidan to do the same. The now blushing man flipped her off and shook his head no.

'Fuck you!' He mouthed, causing Sika to grit her teeth.

"Yes, your finished?" The voice asked again. Oh shit!

"Ahh! More!" Sika moaned, but it was not convincing enough apparently, because the door knob started to turn. Thinking fast, Sika did the only thing she could think to. Hidan moaned all right, but not because he liked it. Her knee meet his croch.

"Oh fuck!" He shouted, and the knob stopped. The man on the other side grunted and left as Hidan fell to the ground clutching his crotch.

"Son of a fucking bitch!" The jashinist shouted, groaning loudly in pain, his entire body on the floor unable to get up.

"My god! You big baby!" Sika commanded, "and shut up! Your gonna attract attention to us!"

"When your fucking cunt hurts as much as my dick, then you can tell me to shut up!" He shouted, "until then, you shut up!"

When he looked up again, tears brining from his eyes, she was laughing. Small giggles lead to stomach clutching cackles that shook her whole frame. She wound up on the floor next to him, still laughing her ass off as he writhed in red hot burning pain.

"I'm gonna wring your fucking neck!" Hidan roared from the floor, staggering upright and stopping to rub a sore spot before he charged for the girl. He'd left his weapon in the hotel room, but he didn't need a blade to strangle her.

Sika tore out the door, barely grabbing her bag in time to skid down the hall, tripping over her feet once and nearly costing her her life. There was no time to sneak or so much as even say a word as they rushed from the building. People flew by and so did the red lights, screams from the Madame and shouts from people on the streets. Sika has no one to stop him this time, or so she thought.

Another, different sounding shout came from the crowd, and looking back Sika realized they were being pursued by more goons from the whore house. Hidan was forced to turn around and fight, but Sika kept running. Her already strained leg muscles screamed for her to stop as her stomach did flips. She couldn't stop, and she knew it least she be murdered or hauled back to the whore house. Familiar grass tickled her legs and cat tails again loomed, telling her she'd reached the plains outside the city. She watched as the oak passed by, the grass growing taller until it morphed into trees. Finally, she fell, her legs giving out and letting her crumble to the ground.

The girl heaved, loosing her lunch as her lungs begged for air and her stomach begged for something to settle it. She heaved again and again until she had nothing else to loose and still after she gaged. She surmised she needed to hide, so after brushing leaf cover over, she crawled away to curl up next to a tree.

The next thing she knew she was being shaken awake without knowing she'd fallen asleep.

"Hey, Kakuzu, she's over here," a familiar voice called, and opening her eyes she found Hidan looking over his shoulder. Kakuzu dropped down from a tree, landing behind him and approached.

"At least she's alive," the older man huffed, "you idiot, you can't do anything right, can you?"

"Hey! She kicked me in the nuts!" The younger shouted.

"I don't care about that. You made a scene and slaughtered all those men. Do you know much much it's going to cost to sweep that under the rug?" The older man scowled and disappeared in a cloud of smoke.

"As if money means a god damn thing anyway," Hidan grunted, looking back at Sika. His face was covered in cuts she was sure would scar and a deep gash had his shirt tore and chest bleeding for the second time tonight.

"Your hurt!" Sika exclaimed, afraid the man who'd just tried to kill her was going to bleed out in front of her eyes. Hidan chuckled.

"Nah," he smirked, taking her hand. He straightened out her fingers and pressed them into his warm chest. Sticky blood mated the cotton of his shirt and costed her fingers, but above all she felt the wound, slowly, gently, and apparently without pain she felt his skin scab, heal and close without a scar all within seconds, "That's all lord Jashin babes. Takes real good care of me."

Bewildered hazel eyes looked at her fingers as she drew them back and then pressed them back into his skin. Iris meet iris in confusion, producing another chuckle from the jashinist.

She took a deep breathe and exhaled as he took her fingers and used what was left of his shirt to wipe her fingers and then the blood from his chest.

"What do you think?" He asked, shrugging his cloak back on and anchoring his sythe to his back. She wasn't sure how to respond to him at first, but then spoke with few very carefully chosen words.

"You are made of crazy."


	2. Chapter 2: Unstuck

Chapter two : Unstuck

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Disclaimer: this story contains mention of suicide and I encourage you not to read if you find yourself depressed. If you need help please reach out to someone or call a suicide prevention hotline.

* * *

"Okay, so, stop me if you've heard this one, an ex-harlot, a priest and a banker walk into a bar," Sika snickered as she just that, walking though the pub door Kakuzu had opened before it closed on Hidan, causing her to snicker again.

"After that stunt you pulled last night you ain't in a good spot to joke," Hidan grunted, cracking his neck, "first I had to sleep in that chair and then on the ground, and then-"

"Stop complaining," Kakuzu commanded, seating himself at the bar, a little more grumpy than usual without his morning coffee. Hidan and Sika mocked him and the accountant ordered them a cheep and simple breakfast.

The jashinist dug in without so much as another word while Kakuzu gave his a second to cool, looking over his black book while he blew on his hot coffee. Sika watched them before her eyes drifted to her own plate. A fork and knife were wrapped up together in the napkin, and unfolding it to look over her eating utensils, the knife fell out onto the table and sent the fork tumbling to the floor.

The waitress smiled at her and told her she'd get another, but Sika was fixated on the knife. It was like a gun went off in her head, the sight of the knife was enough to send her into a fit.

She grabbed the it as quickly as she could and before either of her companions could react, she'd slit her left wrist.

And impossible amount of blood spilt from her vein, she'd slit up, fallowing the main artery. It ran in long tendrils down her arms until it dripped onto her thighs, then further down her shapely legs.

"Fuckin' shit," the jashinist gasped, mouth full of food. He slapped the knife out of her hand faster than the banker could snake thread out of his hand to stitch the wound shut. The waitress, who has been getting some food for a table behind them stood an awe.

"Go clean her up," Kakuzu growled, and then turning to face the waitress, "what the fuck are you looking at?"

Hidan did as he was asked, picking the girl up and throwing her over his shoulders like a sack of potatoes and hauled her off to the bar's single bathroom. When he set her down she was shaking like a leaf and angry, but her lips were sealed tight.

That was fine with Hidan, he didn't want to argue with her.

He wet a paper towel and handed it to her, but she wouldnt take it. She wanted blood staining her skin, because maybe for once such a long time it would remind her that she felt something. Sighing, he hoisted her up on the sink and started on her legs. Kakuzu would have a fit if he let her out of here all bloody.

"You know, you really shouldn't do that. Suicide is pretty much a one way ticket to hell," he nagged.

"And why not? Why don't you just let me go to hell?" She spat, crossing her arms only to have her left yanked away by the jashinist.

"Because. Now hold still," he grumbled, "seriously, you gotta lay off."

"I'm not laying off anything. I want to die and nothing is going to change that. I tried to get rid of you guys but you just brought me back, so now this is your problem," she hissed, trying to kick him, but he was faster, catching her foot and twisting it.

"You know if you fallowed Jashinisum," he started, but she cut him off.

"What the fuck is this Jashinisum? Just what the fuck is it already?" She interjected, refusing to give in to the pain he was bringing her.

"I already told you, Jashin is the God of death. I worship though shared pain, I take lives in her name. I want you to convert," he urged but she wasn't listening.

"Fuck off!" She shouted. He ignored her.

"Whatever pain your in, you won't be in long with Jashin," he assured, having finished with her, and left the bathroom. She fallowed suite not far behind him and breakfast went off without another hitch or any more knives. They got on the road after paying. Sika bringing up the back of the pack, but the men still watched her like a hawk.

They reached a port by afternoon and secured a ride back to the main land via a shady friend if Kakuzu's and settled down in a pub for dinner and some quiet time. Quiet time didn't last though.

"Look, all I'm saying is that if you'd convert now, the sin you carry wouldnt weigh as heavy on you. You gotta repent that shit as fast as you can," the Jashinist drawled, pointing his fork at her lazily with food in his mouth.

"Shut up," Kakuzu ordered and Sika echoed him. Hidan rolled his eyes.

"Whatever," he said flatly, shoving the table over so he could stand up. He left the pub, leaving his vegetables untouched. Sika volunteered to eat them.

"I'm glad he don't eat all his food," she laughed as the banker pushed a bowl of mashed potatoes her way, she hadn't eaten this well since her father had been around. Feeling something coil around her wrist, preventing her from moving her fork, and looking down, she found his threads, the ones she'd seen not 24 hours ago kill a man, insnaring her arm.

"What's this?" She asked as they severed themselves from his body only to wrap around her other arm.

"Can't have you offing yourself just yet can we?" he grunted. He had meant it in a business sense but she mistook it for genuine concern. Dinner didn't last much longer. It was time to board the boat under the cover of night but Hidan was nowhere to be found.

"He'll catch up," Kakuzu assured as he boarded the ship, implying they could just leave him. Sika was a little hesitant, wouldn't he be mad? But they didn't have to worry, Hidan showed up in the nick of time, covered in blood with a stab wound on his chest. Or maybe it was though his chest, Sika couldn't tell.

They weren't even out of the harbor yet and the captain was sending everyone below deck. Why Sika didn't know, but after seeing the cargo, she didn't question it. Large sacks of something that smelled very peculiar lined the lower deck. When she asked she was hushed and then warned not to go near it, implying that it was not only dangerous but illegal.

This place set her nerves on edge. Of course she'd be protected by her traveling partners, but that didn't stop the sleezy crew from eyeing her up. The ninja paid this no mind, they were to protect her to her destination, not baby sit her. The more Sika analyzed the situation, the more she realized that these Akatsuki were not at all what the article in ninja monthly had made them up to be. The magazine had called them visionaries, men working together to make a better world, but it was becoming clear that was just to cover up the organized crime.

"Isn't there anyplace else we can hang around?" The tawny haired girl asked, shifting from one foot to the other.

"No, go sit down," Kakuzu grunted, pulling out his little black book and a pencil. Sika looked over at Hidan who rolled his eyes. He made a hand motion, jutting his thumb to the left. Behind a half stacked pallet of the white bags, Sika could see a hall way on the other side of the room. At first she furrowed her eyebrows and looked back at him, but he made a face and nodded his head a little. He was bored out of his mind already and looking for some kind of trouble to get into.

"Hidan, stop it," Kakuzu commanded, "you two aren't about to be running amuck around this ship."

"I have to go to the bathroom!" Sika chirped and the banker narrowed his eyes. Hidan jumped up, volunteering to show her the way, and the two sped off just as fast as they could down the hall way was an empty mess hall and Hidan commandeered its table and it's bowl of fruit. Sika snatched up an apple and started eating, desperate to make up for lost calories over the past few years.

He observed her from across the table and she grinned back at him in sort of a childish way. Hidan focused most of his energy into murder and bitching, and stabbing himself so when she realized he was reaching out particularly to her, it was worrying. Kakuzu had already warned him not to hurt her but Sika wondered if that was enough.

"You hurting yourself, is that part of your religion?" She asked, throwing her core away. He grunted in agreeance.

"It's a prayer ritual," he replied, trying, and failing, to sound cool.

"What happened to sharing pain? Doesn't it hurt?" She questioned.

"It hurts like a bitch!" He laughed, "I share the pain with lord Jashin, but I also share my life. I do what he asks and I stay immortal."

"No kidding?" Sika raised her eyebrows in disbelief. He didn't say anything more.

"Oh, no way, you have to tell me more, you can't just leave it at that," she urged, getting up to switch table sides and sit next to him on the edge of her chair. He really had her intrigued now.

"What do you want to know?" He replied, but she just shrugged, looking eager and interested.

"Okay, okay. So on top of the self inflicted wounds, I make sacrifices, and I think I've already told ya that. Plus we got commandments, rules, just like every other religion."

"So, if you have to share pleasure too, then you can't like, masturbate?" She asked, catching him off guard.

"What the fuck kind of question is that?" He spat, clearly offended but she wasn't fazed. Though, after considering the source, he wasn't sure why he was surprised.

"What are the rules?" She went on, ignoring him and his objections. He began rattling them off like they were in a book in front of him.

"One, pain and pleasure will never be kept to oneself, two, if blood will be spilled it will be spilled in the name of lord Jashin and no soul will be left battered, that means half dead and covers suicide, three, two people will never have sex with intent to make a child, four, a person is never to offer themselves for any reason for profit, including selling themselves, and five," he said, pausing for effect, "a person of the faith must obey all ritual and prayer traditions and hold the way of Jashin as their only path."

"Just five things and you get to be immortal? That's way too good to be true," she accused, grabbing another apple. He watched her thin lips enclose on it and he saw a flash of her teeth as she but in to it, a tiny trickle of juice running down her chin. Something about her was off.

"Every Jashinist fallows the same rules, but sometimes there's one that is a little better, that's me," he sneered arrogantly, "I'm the only immortal. I invented it."

Sika understood perfectly what he was saying. Boasting or not, he was pretty clever. As silence fell over them, she couldn't help but notice him and his wandering eyes. He wasn't looking at her breasts, he couldn't have been since she'd found a t-shirt in her bag earlier and covered up, but he was looking at something. Her neck she decided, and the veins that ran though it, the bruise, but then to her surprise his eyes looked away to study something else on her person. A stray freckle, a wrinkle on her sleeve, almost like she was under a microscope.

"What?" She asked, crossing her arms and scooting back away from him. He chuckled.

"You tell me," he smirked. Silently he supposed whatever it was that was bothering him about her was a sign, what kind he didn't know.

"Hey," a gruff voice came, Kakuzu emerging from the hallway, "your trip to the bathroom has been a little long."

Hidan's mood visibly fell and he groaned, leaning back in his own chair to glare at his partner in irritation. The banker threw himself down across from Hidan and reached for an apple just as the younger two had before him.

"We're headed to grass country as is, but I have to take a detour. If you wouldnt have ran off last night when we got the hotel room, Hidan," the banker snapped, "we wouldn't have to."

"I had an obligation!" The jashinist retorted, "my religion comes before the Akatsuki!"

Kakuzu didn't want to hear it and choose not to continue the conversation. The rest of the night was small talk and little sleep due to the rocking of the ship. Sika was used to it, so when they got off the boat the next morning, she was ready to go, but her traveling companions were less thrilled than usual. The irritated tension between the partners seemed to fade away though, the farther into the afternoon it became. Hidan wasn't nearly as chatty, preferring to stay silent and observe despite his original idiot impression on her.

Kakuzu's detour took them down along the cost and then to a small port town they reached by late afternoon. Kakuzu was after a bounty, something Sika didn't know he went after regularly, but it didn't surprise her. They ate dinner, which ended up being a cup of soup and a half a sandwich before the pair of mercenaries decided to lock her up in a hotel room for the rest of the night.

Sika seated herself on the bed, which she assumed she'd have to herself that night and observed the two in front of her getting ready to head out to collect the head Kakuzu was after. Apparently they'd been chasing this person for a while now.

"Kakuzu I don't wanna go," Hidan complained, sluggishly trudging around the room. Sika noted he looked paler than usual and for the first time since she'd meet him, he carried no weapon.

"Suck it up," the accountant growled, throwing him a dangerous look. The Jashinist was still having a hard time though, he moaned and groaned and drug on until the banker finally whirled around and barked,

"Just what the hell is wrong with you?"

The Jashinist didn't reply, just revolved face and went in to the rooms ensuite bathroom. Sika got up and poked her head inside the still open door just in time to watch him throw up and she paled too.

"Ew," she muttered, closing the door to silence the wrenching and turned to face Kakuzu. The masked man sighed and shifted from foot to foot, weighing his options.

"I'll stay and take care of him," Sika huffed, acting like this was some big job and like she'd been planning on going with them all along. It was Kakuzu's turn to huff as he left, slamming the door and locking Sika in with the sickly preist. It only took Sika five minutes to figure out that the door also locked from the inside the room too, and slipped out to steal a two litter of ginger ale. When she returned Hidan was still trying to turn his stomach outside of his body. Sighing, Sika barged her way in.

"Just what the," Hidan choked out before having to shove his head back in to the toilet.

"Shut up and puke, jar head," Sika commanded and he gave no indication of being able to stop throwing up.

"I figured maybe you needed somebody to hold your hair, but I forgot it was gelled," she told him, seating herself on the edge of the bathtub behind him, "I dunno if you can answer me, but uh, you got the flu or?"

"Food allergy," he grunted before he wrenched again, "milk."

That made sense, the soup they'd had for dinner had a milk based broth, but apparently he hadn't noticed. Sika thought to reach out and rub his shoulders, knowing they'd be sore later, but as soon as her hands touched his cloths he jumped, all his muscles tensed and she thought he was going to cough up a lung. Sika pulled her hand back, and stood up, quickly leaving the room.

Sika was not particularly fond of touching, she'd been mishandled for too long in her life time, but it was clear to her his aversion for physical contact was much more. She wasn't offended. Of course a mass murderer and psychopath probably wouldnt be used to people touching him kindly. So Sika resolved to sit on the bed and pick at the binding on her arms until the silver haired man emerged from the bathroom an hour later to throw himself on to the other side of the bed.

"Want some ginger ale?" She offered.

He lay face down on the mattress with his arms outstretched and one leg hanging off the bed. He nodded yes and Sika realized she hadn't brought cups. So she opened the bottle anyway and took a drink, supporting it with two hands before she handed it to him. He felt the bottle before sitting up, his face reading something like 'what the fuck' before he realized what she was holding. Crossing his legs Indian style, he took a swig and then sat the bottle down on the nightstand next to him. He had enough sense at least not to chug it, he'd be right back in the bathroom.

"Your welcome," Sika mumbled, knowing he would be too proud to thank her. He rolled his eyes and flopped back down on the bed. "Where are we going? Kakuzu said we were detouring, right?"

"Well, we missed a meeting," he drawled, but huffed and continued when she raised her eyebrows, "it was sort of my fault. We're gonna meet some other Akatsuki."

"Do they all have wonderful personalities like you and Kakuzu?" Sika jested, he didn't think it was funny. He watched her for a second with that strange sort of way she was fast getting used to before he cleared his throat.

"You uh, touched me earlier," he stated, in a way like his throat had gone dry.

"Yeah," she replied.

He'd seen something in that notion that wasn't really there. In all his years of traveling and killing, very few people had lay a hand on him if they hadn't been fighting. Never once though, had someone touched him in a nice way, not even so much as a pat on the back, not since he left the cult.

"Yeah," he replied and that was all that was said on the subject.

"You said you used to be a nun?" He asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Yeah," she sort of laughed, "I tried to learn some kind of compassion and empathy I guess, I was mad after my mom died, like why her, right? I think I started there when I was fifteen? I was only there until I became an adult anyway."

"Why'd you give that up for a whore house?"

"Didn't like it," she replied, "I thought my time was better invested somewhere else, and Madame Ishi made me think she was doing me a favor, she never said how miserable it was. What about you?"

"What's there to know?" He grumbled, but she raised her eyebrows again and pryed an answer out of him.

"I joined The way of Jashin when I was thirteen, and uh, I was eighteen when I slaughtered all those heathens back in hot water country, and then I joined Akatsuki. That's it."

"No parents?" She asked, looking genuinely concerned. That surprised him. She gasped as he shook his head.

"That's rough! How'd you like, develop? Oh, we'll never mind, you didn't. You couldn't have."

"What are you talking about?" He asked, furrowing his eyebrows and throwing her a confused glance. This girl was nuts.

"Well, like, Erickson's eight stages of man? You've never heard of that? It's like how a person develops based on how they're treated though life," she explained, "but I don't know if it matters to you because they royally fuck you ninjas up."

He thought she was crazy, really he did. He wasn't sure where she'd learned that, probably civilian school. They had to teach those kids something. Hidan reached over for the bottle of ginger ale and took a long sip.

"I really enjoy your company though, your nice," she grinned in a bad attempt at flirting. Of course he was oblivious to it. Frankly, he was hot, and he looked even hotter when he fought or talked about that religion he was passionate about.

"I maim people for fun," he scoffed. Him? Nice? Hardly.

"You know what I mean," she said, rolling her eyes in to the next dimension. He nodded and grinned to, he did know what she meant.

"Your not to bad yourself," he returned, in an even worse attempt to flirt, and of course, she was just as oblivious.


	3. Chapter 3: Perennial

Please check out my other story, Silver Spoon! It's getting all my attention right now. Enjoy the update!

**Warning: **gory imagery ahead

* * *

The Akatsuki meeting spot wasn't too far from the port city, just a week and a couple million steps. Sikas feet ached all the way to her hips by the time they reached a tiny town to the north, midway though lighting country. Though chickens outnumbered people here, it was quiet and nice with pretty flowers and nicely kept lawns, trimmed trees and hedges, and after turning down gravel road the flora only got nicer from there. At the end of the road was an old feudal style house, three stories tall and at twice as wide.

"Oh no way you guys live here?" Sika gaped, mouth hung open.

"No," Kakuzu grunted, "it belongs to an associate of ours. Meeting purposes only."

Up all three flights of stairs to a large meeting room, a long, traditional low table in the center set with tea and sweet dango snacks. A black haired man sat at the head of the table, dressed in the same red clouded robe as Hidan and Kakuzu. He was beautiful, not as beautiful as Hidan, but his skin reminded Sika of the color of bleached parchment and his long tresses of hair looked black as night, though she was unable to judge his age with the frown lines set on his features. Hidan eyed her, asking himself why someone who'd just left a whore house would be looking at men that way, especially criminals.

"Your early," the man spoke, his deep voice projecting over the room and commanding respect. Sika swooned.

"Better early than late," Hidan scoffed and threw himself down at the opposite end of the table, away from his leader. That creepy fucker made him nervous, especially with those eyes. It wasn't like he was jealous or anything either though, nope.

"Might I ask about our guest?" The leader asked, raising his eyebrows. It wasn't often their meetings had spectators and like any good leader of anything top secret, he was suspicious. Kakuzu grunted, jerking the girls arm to bring her around beside him, but Sika did not need an excuse to introduce herself.

"My name is Sika, uh, Otori, Sika," she grinned, practically love sick, her manners thrown out the window, she'd do anything to learn his name, "and you are?"

"Uchiha, Itachi," he replied, tone very flat, and very emotionless, "Akatsuki leader."

"Your the leader?" Sika gasped, "oh I wouldnt have guessed!"

Hidan would have been laughing, Itachi was a stoic asshole and he hated him, he deserved to be mistaken for a nobody. Certainly Hidan wasn't jealous, but why was itachi getting all the attention?

"Your so young and handsome!" Sika continued. If Itachi was flattered he didn't show it. Hidan set his jaw on edge.

"Leader, do you suppose it would be alright if Sika sat in our meeting today? She has... A condition," Kakuzu coughed, using the term condition loosely. Really he just wanted to keep an eye on her. Itachi nodded and Kakuzu sat down, jerking the tawny haired girl down with him. Not to be ignored, Hidan moved closer, setting one final time next to Sika. The rest of the Akatsuki attending began joining them shortly after.

First it was Kisame, the big, blue, hulking, bastard, and all of a sudden Itachi was old news. Being from the mist herself, meeting a real live member of her villages seven swordsman was almost too much for her. She shook his hand about a million times and gushed over his sword and pestered the shit right out of him with question after question.

No, he did not know her father, no, his favorite food was not sushi or sashimi, _yes_, he was born that color and _no_, he did not take vitamins for it.

Then Konan and Pein joined them, and Sika begged the blue haired woman to teach her to make a flower like the one in her hair. Hidan could see Konan biting her lip, her ball piecing rolling with irritation by use of her tounge. Pein was about two seconds from almighty pushing her though a wall.

The meeting was long and boring as usual. Handing out more missions, giving reports, being endlessly lectured about 'ethics' and 'practicality' and all this bullshit that basically meant don't kill anyone you don't have to, and then gave a Kakuzu an updated bounty list. Hidan hated it and he hated the Akatsuki. Really the only reason he was here was for his own selfish need for security, without Akatsuki he was one murderer, alone, with a huge bounty. Sika probably hated it more. Absentmindedly, she wondered who everyone was here if it was only Hidan and Kakuzu that missed a meeting?

"Moving on," Itachi continued, after near an hour.

Oh god, Sika thought, what had she ever done to deserve this?

A sudden, sharp poke to her hand attracted her attention. Looking down, Hidan had taken the paper sheet he was meant to take notes on, folded it up small, and written something on it. Peering down, Sika made out his hand writing.

"I'm bored," it read, a little frowning face with its tongue stuck out was drawn next to it.

"Me too," she replied and handed him back the pen.

"Let's play hang man," the jashinist suggested and Sika nodded. Hidan then proceeded to draw a set of gallows and then fourteen blanks. Sika wrote her guesses down next to it. The letter b gave the man a head, the letter d gave him a body, but the letters t and a gave her a little to work with. Ta and then a blank, then the letter a. Sika guessed I and that filled in a little more.

Ita, blank, blank I, then another I, clearly a part of the word is, then the a, and then the lone I in the middle of the last word. Oh, Hold on, Itachi is a something? Sika guessed a few more letters and ended up with p, c, k, and two arms, but finally she had enough to finish the puzzle.

"Itachi is a prick?" She wrote down causing Hidan to snicker. That was it alright. Hidan finished hanging the guy anyway, because damn, what was suffering without death? He had to finish him off. That made Sika snicker.

"Do you two care to share?" Itachi's cool, crisp voice asked and they knew he was talking to them.

"No," Sika murmured, feeling all eyes on her. Just like a school kid getting in trouble, and just like the teacher, Itachi went back to speaking. Hidan's eyes meet Sika's for just a second, still scheming, and he could see the delight in her hazel irises. She was having just as much fun as he was.

The meeting was adjourned after nearly two hours of drag out, monotone speech and some of the other members left, Hidan being one if them, going with a downstairs while chattering to himself something about ideas for mass destruction. Sika, head resting in folded arms at the table and tired looking eyes, choose to stay and finish her tea. After hearing all she'd heard, Sika wasn't sure she'd be allowed to leave alive anyways.

Sitting up and pulling from her bag, a well worn magazine from a few months ago, crumpled cover and all made its way to the table and she flipped pages to an often visited, dog eared page on these people. She'd read the page a hundred times, she knew every word by heart. Something here just didn't make sense. She knew it'd been off since the first time she meet Hidan and Kakuzu, but now something really wasn't lining up.

"So, your mercenaries?" She asked, cutting the silence in the room, "I have this that says..." She trailed off. She looked up, pushing the article in to the center of the table, but after she realized only four other people were left in the room, and all eight sets of eyes were on her, she felt a little sheepish.

Itachi cleared his throat, sat down his tea and picked up the magazine. He scanned the page, skimming the paragraph briefly before signing and setting it down. He moved very slowly and he spoke almost as slowly, like every move was calculated.

"This article isn't the whole truth. This paints us as heroes, as if we only do good things, but sometimes you have to do something bad to get good results," the ebony haired man spoke quietly, "Take for instance, Orochimaru, you are aware of him, correct?"

Sika was. She'd read an article about him too, ninja monthly had a profile article on him last fall, he'd killed the third Hokage after letting loose a huge three headed snake in the far away leaf village, attempting (and failing) to kidnap/curse a teenage boy and all.

"He's gone now. He was leading a small country which has since plunged in to civil war, that's bad, but an evil man is dead, which is good. It outweighs." The leader explained.

It took Sika a second to wrap her head around that. According to him, the Akatsuki was neither bad nor good.

"I still don't understand. Isn't it wrong to damage many lives in exchange for one?" She asked, sweeping golden locks over her shoulder. Her facial features told the leader she was intent on comprehension, but that wasn't something he could just give her. After moments of silence Sika accepted she wouldnt be getting her answer.

According to Itachi, the ends justified the means.

According to Itachi, the sound village would reach peace after its civil war, without help.

Sika wasn't so sure. If she knew anything as truth, things rarely went as planned.

After tea, Sika was involuntarily drug along with Kakuzu down to the ground floor. The masked man wouldn't let go of her arm and she knew better than to try to shake him. It was okay though, she was pretty sure he was going to feed her, and she wanted all the food she could get. Unfortunately, Kakuzu wasn't headed for the kitchen, he was headed to a sun room where his partner and two new people that hadn't been at the meeting were sitting.

Hidan was laying stretched out on a sofa, sleeping, while a blonde boy her age had his back leaning on that same sofa, concocted something in a jar, taking powders from other measuring cups at his feat and sprinkling them in, all while stirring a color changing liquid. A redheaded man much older than her sat motionless across the room from them, face unreadable. When the banker sat down next to him, he forced Sika down to the floor.

"Sit still," he commanded, but they both knew she wasn't able to do that. It was quiet for a while, save for the occasional sizzle from the blonde's science experiment, but quiet was boring and whatever he was doing looked fun. Childishly crawling on her hands and knees, Sika crossed the room and came to rest next to him, peering at his work. He spared her a single glance as he worked.

"Deidara, If that explodes in here, I swear, " the red head threatened, but Deidara ignored him. Well at least now Sika knew his name.

"What are you making?" She asked, leaning over to get a better look.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you. And I'm making a substance to pour in to my explosive clay. There's too big of a bang when it explodes, too noisy," he replied, picking up a cup of pink powder and gently, ever so slowly, he began pouring it in.

"Wouldn't do what?" She asked.

As if on cue, Deidara unknowingly shook just a little too much in, and the jar exploded. Glass went everywhere, flying across the room and slicing anything in its path as the liquid inside it fallowed suite. Chemical burns formed right away on Deidara's exposed skin, red, angry and bubbling, and they should have blinded the girl sitting too close for comfort, but instead her eyes were covered.

"Son of a fucking- ahh!"

Above her, Hidan hissed in pain and drew his hand away from her face, gripping his wrist with his free hand. Sika gawked at him, seeing stars, as he gritted his teeth, swore and waited for the healing to begin, both unaware of the noxious fumes filling the room.

Sasori and Kakuzu were quick to react, Sasori yanking Deidara by his collar out of the room, but Kakuzu wasn't so nice to his partner. The banker grabbed Sika by her long hair and drug her, leaving Hidan to fend for himself. Smoke alarms were going off around them as they exited, the emerald eyes man depositing his money ticket in the grass outside the building and warned her to stay put as he walked off, intending to beat the shit out of Deidara and survey the damage done to his pocket book as well as the house. He bumped shoulders with Hidan, who walked towards Sika as Kakuzu walked away.

She stood up and meet him, clamoring to see his hand as he god damned and son of a bitched everything to heathen hell. Hidan's skin was already scabbing, shrinking, scarring and then returning to normal. He flexed his hand a few times, moving his fingers around before sighing and huffing.

"He fucking left me! Unbelievable! Seriously, he's another godless bastard headed straight for hell," the Jashinist grumbled, rubbing his hand just a little longer to chase away any lingering pain.

"That was really cool," Sika blurted, "How you handled that I mean."

Hidan tried quickly to brush it off, caught off guard. It hadn't been that big of a deal to him, and fir the first time he had to think of something to say, "it was nothing."

"Nothing?" She mocked, eyes as large as dinner plates. "you saved me. I mean look, I'm not even hurt."

"Well," he began, but trailed off, unable to finish his thought. It was true, looking her over, she was completely unscathed. He'd acted on instinct he tried to tell himself. He could see her pulse under her skin, her breathing hitched in excitement every so often and her pupils is dilated uncontrolled, blown larger than he thought possible. Why was she so interested in him? He didn't know. They sort of stared awkwardly at each other for the next couple moments until he pulled his hand from her grip. It was healed and she didn't need to hold on to it anymore.

"Hey!" Deidara shouted across the lawn from a doorway, his hands bandaged and a black eye forming, "it's safe to come back inside!"

"I'm gonna kick your ass so hard blondie, your gonna have to staple your dick back on!" Hidan shouted, narrowing his eyes and clenching his fists. He motioned for Sika to fallow him and lead her back in to the house. Deidara had disappeared but Kakuzu was sitting at the kitchen table, so Hidan decided to park himself there. Sika fallowed his lead.

"Will you tell me again about the commandments?" She asked, catching his attention just as he settled in to the dinning room chair.

"Sure," he cleared his throat, happy to share again, "One, share your pain and your pleasure."

"Go slow," she urged, trying to drink his words and memorize the shape of his mouth with every syllable.

"Two, all blood will be spilled for Lord Jashin and no soul will be left battered," he continued, speaking much slower, like a mantra, "three, two people can never have sex to create a child. Four, a person is never to offer themselves for profit and-"

"No, wait, tell me more about four," she wanted to come closer to him,to wrap her heads and her hands around his words. Was there more? More scriptures, more to listen to, more to read? She want, no, needed to know it all.

"A Jashinist should hold lord Jashin above all and hold themselves above all worldly possessions. Basically you shouldnt sell yourself out for anyone or anything," he elaborated. Talking about his religion made him feel smart, it was one thing he was good at other than fighting, and he spoke with confidence.

The gears turned in Sika's head.

"Suicide violates number one?" She questioned, "because I'm not sharing pain?"

"Bingo," the Jashinist grinned. For once someone was listening to him preach? No way! It was only silent at the table for a moment before Sika opened the table up for discussion on the principles of jashinism again. She understood suffering, on an emotional level, and the cult preacher's methodical tone was getting to her.

The pair drew a lovely parallel to each other. Hidan could hardly keep from hurting himself, he liked the hurt, he liked the stinging of his skin, he liked the ache deep inside when he plunged a weapon though his chest, though his heart, his lungs, his _bones. _He loved it more than he hated it, and he hated it a lot.

The preset was a walking oxymoron.

Sika didn't mind though. Someone else understood everything she'd been though and that was all that mattered.

Several others joined them at the table, namely the red head from earlier, Sasori, who spoke with Kakuzu in low tones even after the religious session was over. Somehow a conversation with the banker about a bounty turned in to a weapons discussion with the girl.

"Well, poison is clearly the quickest, or slowest, depending on your taste, way to kill someone. It's most efficient," the red head lectured, "no mess. And when things stay contained, it's easier to make my art."

"Art?" Sika questioned.

"Here we go," Hidan huffed. The quiet red head wouldn't let it go now she'd asked about it.

"Yes," sasori continued, producing a small vial of purple colored liquid from who knows where on his person, "this, for instance, a drop only takes a minute or two. After death I can begin making the left over parts in to a human puppet."

"She's a civilian!" Hidan tried to argue, but his captive audience had already been stolen.

"I begin by turning the skin to leather, and fit it with joints on a wood frame. I remove the innards and replace those with weapons, it takes endless hours of toying with the joints to get everything just right, but the final product is true eternal beauty."

The red heads face never changed, and his lips moved in a very unusual way, and that's when Sika realized, in pure horrified, disgust that he himself was one of the puppets. This man was a sick son if a bitch if Sika had ever seen one. She understood weapons, but not weapons that used to be people.

It was sort of ironic, the way she felt.

Did those people he killed, still stuffer? Did they know they were dying? Did it hurt? Did they move on to meet lord Jashin? Wait, hold on, was there a correct way to suffer? A correct way she should feel pain?

"Do you mind if I take this?" Sika asked, fingers headed in the bottles direction. It was small, but probably enough liquid inside to kill a bull elephant. It shone a bright amethyst in the lighting, it's triangular shaped bottle capped off with cork.

"Not at all," the red head replied as her fingers closed around it. Kakuzu scowled deeply behind his mask, and went to take it from her as she brought it closer to her person, but Hidan beat him too it.

Sasori knew what she was up to, and Sasori wanted it to happen. Seeing his action offended the other two men at the table, he excused himself under murderous glares, not that he cared one way or another. A new body was a new body.

"**Don't** be getting any ideas," the masked man growled. Sika gave him a sideways glance but didn't reply.

So Sika dicked around with Hidan for the rest of the afternoon, they played hangman a few more times and they ate dinner. No one used the dinning room table besides them, though each member, save for Sasori, went though the kitchen and served themselves some of the food that the house staff provided.

As it was, the house did belong to an associate of the Akatsuki. This associate was more than happy to lend his resources, because, you know, they were afraid, and their resources did include food and a full staff.

After dinner, Deidara joined them again and Kakuzu left. Sika learned that Deidara and Hidan were close in age, and much closer in personality. They both harbored some kind of murderous intent that hinged on mass genocide, in a way that was both intense and chill at the same time. Deidara made Sika uncomfortable. She was used to ninja and she was used to murder, but he made her uneasy. She kept her mouth mostly shut.

That was a paradox, Sika realized. Hidan had tried to kill her, on purpose, and Deidara had tried to kill her on accident, but somehow the blond with the strange kekki genkai seemed worse. Hidan was at least upfront about wanting to kill someone. Deidara seemed very unassuming, but he had to be some kind of crazy to be a part of Akatsuki. Eventually simple chatter about murder turned in to drinks.

Sika didn't drink, but Hidan drunk like a fish.

Deidara was a lightweight, which was to be expected since he was so small in stature. He was drunk three drinks in, but macho man Hidan was positively trashed by four. That was sort of surprising. Sika figured he must have a low tolerance. So, being an opportunist and having an active death wish, Sika got an idea watching the two men together.

"Hey, you guys, I think you should have a drinking contest."

"What kind of contest, yeah?" The blond asked, slurring his words with his face flushed.

"First one 'ta puke looses!" Hidan bellowed, laughing and pulling the drink glasses over to Sika. She took up the bottle and poured the equivalent to two shots in to each before passing it back to them. Hidan picked his up and tipped his head back, the liquid sloshing out of the cup and he downed it in one mouthful. He slammed the cup back down on the table and commanded another. Deidara did his a little differently, instead choosing to chug it in slow succession. He kept it tipped up and he kept drinking until his glass was empty, and he presented his cup to Sika too. They kept on like that for two more rounds until finally Hidan lost, tipping his head a little too far back until his chair fell over and he hit the ground.

"Oh shit," the blond boy muttered, downing the last of his drink so he could declare himself the winner. Sika knelt down and put her hand on the down man's forehead. He was out cold, passed out drunk, just like she'd wanted. She still needed to look concerned though.

"Do you think you could go get Kakuzu for me?" She asked, looking up at Deidara, "I'll stay here and try to wake him up."

"Sure," he slurred, and struggled to stand. After he finally got to his feet he staggered off down the hall, using the wall for support. Sika waited until he was out of sight to go for the vial Hidan had tucked away into his pocket.

She held the bottle up in the artificial light, turning and twisting the bottle to see how it would react. Air bubbles in the bottle sloshed around with it, filling space and maneuvering the liquid inside. A drop of this would kill her in a minute, she wondered what a whole bottle would do.

Beside her, Hidan groaned and opened his eyes, watching her though narrowed slits. Sika wondered if he could even see her. He was so out of it. He might be looking at her, or he might be looking though her.

"It's been fun," she muttered, popping the cork from the bottle. She stuck it under her nose and inhaled, and after finding it had no smell, she concluded that she'd die in a pleasant way, since it probably wouldn't have a taste to leave in her mouth.

"What?" He murmured, and then suddenly, his eyes went wide, "hey! Don't!"

His intoxicated hands grabbed for the poison bottle, but she was a lot more coordinated than him. She leaned away from his swipe and downed the bottle, the smooth, waxy substance sliding down her throat with ease. No sooner had she cast the bottle away were a pair of hands around her throat.

"Son of a bitch!" A voice behind her roared, and suddenly her jaw was being ripped open. She heard it crack, fallowed by white hot pain searing though her skull, and she knew Kakuzu had broken her jaw. He'd unhinged it from her skull and then broken it in two on the right side, the bone jarred and rubbed on itself before faltering and overlapping, tearing her muscles and sending her nerves into misery.

"Go find Sasori! Go! Now! Find the antidote!"

She knew he was yelling, no, screaming at Deidara, as his fingers found their way to the back of her throat. She wanted to suppress her gag reflex just like she'd been taught at the brothel, but her jaw hurt, it hurt so badly she couldn't think. She threw up, again and again until he finally dropped her, face down.

Someone's feet were running but she couldn't see who, she was too far lost in to a coughing fit, laying in a heap and failing to breathe. She'd been lucky it hadn't been her neck that snapped. Her vision was blurring, the edges turning white. Someone was talking again, but who she didn't know.

"Where's the antidote?"

"There isn't one."

"What do you mean there isn't one?!"

"I mean one doesn't exist."

"Fuck! Fuck fucking fuck!"

This was not like she imagined it. She was laying in puke and struggling to breathe, weather that was from throwing up or the poison she couldn't decide. This was not a quick, quiet, peaceful death where she slipped off in to a sleepy darkness. No, this was painful and downright terrifying.

"Kakuzu! Gimme something, a knife, anything!"

"Oh no, your not sacrificing her, this is your fault!"

"I don't give a shit! Give me something! _Now_!"

Something clinked and hit the ground near her with a thud. She felt the floor shift and heard it creek, a hiss of pain, a pause, and then she felt it. Cool metal buried itself deep in her guts, twisting and driving itself down further until it could no more. The pain in her jaw was nothing compared to this.

"Hidan!"

"By the power of God, the great, the powerful, the Devine, Lord Jashinist, I ask, I beg, for you to make this woman my sister and spare her heathen soul from the depths of hell and eternal damnation!"

All of a sudden her breathing failed all together. She gasped and choked and stifled, but still she was asphyxiating. Her body halted, she wasn't even sure if her heart was still beating, but the floor below her was growing wet and warm as she grew pale and cold.

"Hidan!"

"By the power of the God I hold dear, please, take her and make her your own!"

"Hidan!" A voice bellowed like a bull elk. Whatever it had been inside of her, radiating the cold twisted deep within, pulled away, tearing her flesh and skin more so on the way out. It hurt.

It hurt so bad.

This was a pain Sika had never felt. She couldn't feel her legs. Her chest was on fire. Ache radiated from her jaw. This was so prominent, like nothing she'd felt before. There was a weight on top of her but she barely felt it. She wanted to scream, she wanted to let sobs wrack though her body, but she couldn't. Nothing would move. Her world, in that moment, was made entirely of pain.

The weight above her lifted, and slowly, she realized, that had been Hidan laying on top of her. Not that she could see it, but he'd slit it own throat to sacrifice her, and then slumped over her until he regained consciousness.

"Well that'll sober you up," he coughed once, and sniffed. The room was quiet, the silence beginning to stale.

"My fucking money!" Kakuzu shouted, that had to be Kakuzu.

"Relax money bags," Hidan scoffed, "give her a minute."

Long strided, heavy foot steps approached next, and a deep, raspy, tired sort of voice that could only belong to Kisame spoke, "Anyone want to explain just what the hell is going on down- oh." The room probably looked like a war path. 'Oh' was right.

"Like I said," Hidan hissed, and then growled, "give her a minute."

But a minute, a full minute, passed and Sika was still caught in limbo. She was still in unbelievable pain. Her senses had been robbed, she was dead, she had to be. This was hell, Hidan was right about killing herself.

Her eardrums began to ache, pounding and ringing and thumping in to her already damaged head, vibrating helplessly and adding to torment. Then her throat was on fire, and a sound rung though the air. What was this? This couldn't still be the poison could it?

No, Sika realized, it was her. That was her own voice, screaming.

Her jaw bone ticked and then twinged, ticking again and again, fighting to fix, to adjust its place until finally it mended with the most intense agony of the night. Her jaw itself cricked and shuttered until it too repaired itself. Her chest, which up until now had been spilling its contents on the floor was mending with the same white hot fire that she'd felt when her jaw broke. She could feel bones realigning and her organs twisting back in to place like a gentle hand was nudging them back in to place. Her wound was closing, knitting itself together and scabbing, only to scar, and then allowing the scar to fade. Her pain lingered, just a few more seconds, becoming less and less until it was gone.

When her eyes opened, it was quiet again. She hadn't even noticed herself stop screaming.

"Sika, if you can hear me, say something," Hidan rasped, low and unsure.

She drew in a breath with what felt like a new pair of lungs,"Something."


	4. Chapter 4: Emissary

Chapter 4: Emissary

* * *

When her hazel eyes fluttered open, blinking away the blur and lull of sleep, Sika realized she was not where she last remembered. She'd been stripped of her clothing and lay down in a dark, strange bedroom. Not that it bothered her, she was used to being without clothing, and whoever it was had been nice enough to bind her breasts.

She lay still, eyes searching the room for another presence, but none made themselves known. She sat up, her skin pulling at her in a tight, strange way and her muscles screamed for her to be still, but muscle ache was not new to her. She sat up anyway and looked around.

The last she remembered, she was on the floor in the dining room, gasping for breathe and her chest healing from a major wound, her two hired body guards nearby with a few other… onlookers. Now she was alone, under a thick blanket. The room's only window was covered, but light peeked from under it. This room was traditional Japanese, the bed cushion was placed on the floor and a small table was seated nearby. A few cabinets were on one wall, but the others were bare, save for a western styled wood door on one.

She shifted again to find a more comfortable position and something around her neck clinked in a metallic sort if way.

Someone had placed prayer beads around her neck, beautiful white prayer beads, and at the end of them was a familiar looking pendant.

"I hoped it was a dream," she murmured, fingering the cold metal loosely "fuck."

Brooding wasn't going to help her, she surmised, so when she finally got up the gumption, she stood up.

On the table was a note, and next to it was a pair of black pants and a roll of that athletic-y tape/bandage stuff. She'd seen enough men to know what she was supposed to do. It didn't bother her to go commando, but the pants were men's and therefor too big. She rolled them up and wrapped the waist band with the tape so they wouldn't fall off of her hips, but she was still terribly uncomfortable. Her shirt was probably ruined, but she hoped her pants were just in the dryer or something.

The note on the table was next for inspection. The handwriting was crooked and messy, it had to be Hidan's because who else but a backwoods hick from hot water country spelled like that? The note detailed in the vaguest way possible that he had to leave with Kakuzu that morning, they were hunting a bounty on a target that needed taking out as fast and as soon as possible, and that Sika would be able to stay with Itachi until they got back to finish the delivery to her father.

Under it, he listed again the five principles of Jashinisum.

Fuck.

Maybe it wasn't too late to back out. Maybe it wasn't too late to lift this curse of a religion. Maybe Hidan hadn't left yet. After pocketing the note, Sika left the room, slamming the door behind her and walking down the strange hall at a breakneck pace. The house was ill lit, the wood grain halls were made from dark wood, each stepped seemed to bring darkness closer and closer. Sika turned corner after corner, flinging opened doors and charging though until finally, she came to a sliding door made out of rice paper. It was beautifully inked with a depiction of a crane and though it's thin fibers, light glowed.

It took minimal effort to throw open the door.

The room behind the door was all windows and every one of them was uncovered. The light that flooded in was a bright golden, setting everything ablaze with color and casting long shadows. It was late afternoon. She'd slept all day.

"Good afternoon," a voice came. Calm and even. It was Itachi. Sika hadn't even realized he was in the room with the sun throwing shadows the way it was.

Itachi was seated at a low, traditional table, drinking tea and looking over a spiral bound notebook. He sat on a pillow instead of the tatami, though the color of the pillow was had to tell. He managed to seat himself between two windows, the wall shading his figure. If he'd been sitting in the sun, his skin would have looked orange just like Sika's was now.

"Good afternoon," the girl greeted. Silently she cursed, Hidan was already gone.

"Are you feeling better?" He asked. He was being polite, it was important not to confuse that with actually caring. "Please, sit."

"I am," she replied, and she stood there awkwardly for a second before she produced the note from her pocket as she settled down across from the black eyed man, "uh, sorry to bother you. I uh, well, do you know when Hidan will be back?"

"A few weeks. A month at most," Itachi replied. He didn't do anything else but reply. Not even so much as a muscle twitch.

Sika wanted to curse, but she had better manners than that, "I see. You know, you don't have to babysit me. I tried to tell Kakuzu that I want to give up on finding my father."

"The situation was explained to me before he left," he paused for a moment to shuffle some papers around and when he looked back up, something about his face had changed. It was his eyes, physically they hadn't changed but something felt off. It was quite unnerving. Sika squirmed.

"Kakuzu asked me to give you a test. Seeing as you can no longer…expire."

Oh shit, here it was. Her eyebrows raised as her stomach churned. What could the leader of a mercenary group possibly want with her? "What sort of test?"

"Kakuzu thinks that you know more than you're letting on," the leader's expression didn't change.

"And why would he think that?" The tawny haired girl countered.

"You come from a shinobi background. He thought it was…. Interesting, how you duped Hidan," Itachi's words were few but his message was loud and clear. He thought she was lying to him.

"It's easy to fool someone like Hidan, I didn't even have to know him. I've only been around him for a few days, he's not a hard nut to crack," Sika's brow broke out in a cold sweat. She swallowed and fidgeted in her seat. She was afraid and she was sure this man was going to be her end.

"That's exactly the point. You knew his personality and you knew his behavior within a few days. You saw an opportunity and you took it. You double crossed someone who was helping you." Itachi didn't have to say it. Those same traits were the same that asked someone to kill their comrade, to outwit the enemy. Those were shinobi traits.

Sika didn't speak.

Itachi continued after the tension in the air had dissipated .

"Kakuzu also mentioned something about a genjutsu called the Sweet Sakura Mist? Can you perform it?

"Of course I can," Sika countered, her voice high and hinting hostility, "my own father invented it. Kiri is dangerous, he-"

"Combining your potential," Itachi spoke over her, cutting her off, "and your new condition, if you will, that you might be quite valuable."

Sika buttoned her lips for just a moment. A long, long, long life had given her an aversion to men that raised their voice to her. She wasn't afraid, but she knew she should be cautious. Women who talked back in her neck of the woods didn't go very far (not that it ever stopped her), but, she realized, she had nothing to lose. This man couldn't kill her. There was no reason to be afraid of that, but then she realized, maybe death was the best thing on the table. He could rape her, or he could hold her down and choke her, preventing her from breathing and hold her on the verge of death but it would never reach her. He could pull all of her finger nails off, and then start with her knuckles after he'd finished. He could have her father killed.

She began very slowly, looking down at her fingers and trying to push what she'd just envisioned from her head, "I don't understand. Are you offering me a job?"

"Yes," the man answered and then began to explain, "I employ around twenty people, eight of us do the majority of battle, the others work in the background. You probably won't ever be a heavy hitter, but regardless, with the proper training I have a position that will fit you well."

"I'm not interested," Sika quickly spit out, "I just want to find my father and live in peace. I don't want to fight, or lie, or cheat, I just want to go home."

"Perhaps I can sway you with money," that got her attention. Her jaw went slack and her eyes widened. She looked up to meet his gaze for a split second before returning her attention to her fingers.

"If I were to trade your service for the cost of paying off your debt to Akatsuki, would you consider it?" His demeanor had changed. He spoke more respectfully, he seemed kinder. Sika wondered how he'd gotten Kakuzu to go along with this.

"How long?" She asked, testing the waters.

"One year. After your father is found of course."

"And I don't have to stick around any more after that? I can go home and I'll be left alone?" She was suspicious and her expression reflected it. He nodded.

"I'm unskilled," she pointed out.

"I have a teacher already prepared. You won't ever see heavy combat," he was quick to reply, "Assuming you pass the test that is."

Sika mulled this all over in her head. All she had to do was be the errand girl for these guys for one year, hopefully without any blood on her hands, and she'd be free to live out the rest of eternity in peace with her father. She'd be out of the public eye too, he'd said she'd be behind the scenes. She knew she'd never be able to stop Kakuzu if he wanted to kill someone if the off chance her father couldn't pay. Heads would roll. It wouldn't matter where hers ended up, but her Dad? As soon as it left his neck he'd be all done.

Sika had to face the fact that she hadn't seen her father in years. Did he even still want her around? Would be reaccept her into his household? If he did, she had no way of knowing his financial status. She loved him, no matter where he'd gone, and she wouldn't be able to live if he died. "We won't mention this to my father or anyone he associates with."

"That's fair."

"You've got yourself a deal."

He held out his hand to shake on it and she hesitantly took it. Finally she felt confident enough to look up at him. She made eye contact and as soon as she did she watched his once black eyes spin into crimson. She opened her mouth to sputter something, but the Akatsuki leader's unwavering red gaze had something deep inside of her warping.

This was her test. He'd caught her in a genjutsu. A monochromatic world of emptiness. There was a very definite line where the ink colored sky meet the linen white ground and it hurt to stare at the point where they joined like it hurt to stare at the sun. The room was empty with only her standing in the middle until Itachi materialized in her line of view.

"What do I have to do to pass the test?" She asked, trying to project her voice, but the sound rang through the air and reverberated through her ears, pushing her to her knees. It hurt, it hurt so bad, like the sound waves were trying to split her head in two. She cried out in pain, but the noise had the same reaction. Sika clasped her hands over her ear and stuck her pointer fingers down her ear canal to try and stop the drum from vibrating and shaking every piece of her inner ear.

"Survive," the man responded. His words pierced the air around her. Something warm and wet was bubbling in her head and she had no idea what it was. Her auditory nerve felt like it was being repeatedly stapled with a staple gun, over and over the intense pain hit her until the moisture inside of her ear came flowing out. She was bleeding.

She buried her face in the dirt, her hands clasped over her ears. Her palms were slowly coating in blood. It occurred to her that if this didn't stop soon, then she had no other option but to pop her own ear drums and deafen herself.

During the process of thinking that one though, the real trouble started. Another noise began quietly, a staccato bray from some sort of animal. The other noises in the room began to fade as this one got louder. It was a crow, cawing, screaming and causing all hell to break loose in her head. The Akatsuki leader was dematerializing. His fingers became feathers and his hand became a bird, his entire body was breaking apart and from the pieces came the crows. The first crow to come at her swarmed her head, pulling her hair between its feet, picking at her back, and as the man disintegrated, more of its brothers joined it.

Their beaks were sharp, anywhere they decided was good enough quickly became an open wound. Their cawing never ceased and the pain in her head never let up. She shifted, trying to cover her ears and cover her head at the same time, but as the number of birds increased, she found herself swatting and lunging at the birds, angering them. There was no way she could protect herself and cover her ears. Their attacks didn't let up.

Her skin was scraping, their feet dragging, their needle sharp beaks stuck holes in her hide. Everything was bleeding all at once, her ears, her fingers, her palms, her arm, her shoulder, her torso, all down to her bare feet.

There were so many birds swarming her she wasn't able to estimate how many there were. They dug deeper into her skin, pulling, tearing, drilling deeper to pull out her flesh and swallow it whole. Sika would hit one with enough force she was sure she'd killed it, knock it to the ground, and watch it get up, two more taking the place the one had just occupied.

"Somebody help me! Hidan! Please!" She screamed, agony over powering her, but instantly she regretted it. The sound bounced back at her. Her vision was spinning, vertigo over taking control. With her inner ear disrupted, she couldn't see, she couldn't walk, it was hard to even coordinate her hands. No one was coming for her. This world was empty besides her and the birds and there was no way to escape, only a way to suffer.

There was only one more person to ask for help. She didn't know if she could do it. "Lord Jashin! I beg of you!"

And then it was broken. Nothing was black or white in the tea room, just bright hues of orange and yellow, her own skin turning a bright cantaloupe color in the setting sunlight. Sika was panting, lungs heaving, laying flat on her back and panting, but she was alive. Itachi was here too, no crows.

Psychologically, she felt like she'd been drug through all nine circles of hell by a fish hook. It occurred to her that this was not the first time she'd lived though her death, and she didn't feel alright. She shook, every muscle in her body tensed and twitching, her pupils blown wide and her jaw slack. Her right shoulder gave a rapid jerk, and then another, and then her fingers spasmed and her calves tightened. The room was still spinning with vertigo and even when she shut her eyes it was still spinning. Instead she saw flashbacks of both of her near death experiences.

Lord Jashin had saved her, she realized. Hidan hadn't been kidding around.

She felt, for the second time in twenty four hours, like she might throw up. Whatever that was the leader did was powerful, too powerful and very disturbing.

She needed to calm down, she needed to get ahold of herself and find all of her limbs, but when she couldn't manage either was when the fog rolled in. Something was hazing her brain, quieting all of the muscle ticks and soothing her racing thoughts. It felt heavy, grey and calming. It forced her eyes shut, allowing her eyesight to return to normal, and for just a second it disrupted her hearing. With a second of quiet, her brain was free to buffer what was sound and what was genjutsu dream. Nothing was hurting anymore. Nothing was moving, not even her lungs.

When the haze settled in to the face of her brain, she regained her motor skills. She drew in a single deep breath and exhaled, pulling fresh air into her lungs. She was getting a grip. Next to return to her was her eyesight, then her hearing, and then her neck down. She was still for a moment, still organizing her thoughts, and then she sat up. She outstretched her arms behind her to use as braces, palms on the floor and shoulders hunched.

"You pass," the leader spoke, his voice full of stern, condescending contempt. Sika didn't know what to make of that. "You're dismissed."

"Thank you," she murmured, and slowly got up and left.

* * *

The first thing Sika did was find someone to draw her a bath.

Like, an actual employed servant, drew her a bath. Her, as in, the ex-prostitute.

It was an old fashioned sort if bath, as in they heated water with a fire under the tub in some other room. There was no pipes or shower head, the room was traditional, like the bedroom. The circular tub had a cover, a pair of high quality, half circle wood slats that kept nonsense out when the water wasn't in use and a servant girl had brought in a bowl, soap and a clean washcloth and sat them down next to the tub.

This was the first time in a long time Sika wasn't taking a bath to unstick her thighs from each other. The initial rise before she actually got in the tub didn't take as long as it usually did, and neither did the actual washing. Sika was glad for that, because she only bothered taking a bath to soak her body in the hot water though she was careful not to get soap in the tub itself.

She could feel her skin reddening and her muscles soothing. She tilted her head back to rest on the tub and sunk down further. It'd been so long since she'd had a bath this way, the whore house had only used showers.

She was still on edge, no matter how nice it was to properly relax. It would occur randomly to her throughout the day that she was no longer mortal, because why wouldn't she be? She'd forget and remember and then her heart would race with all the implications of that. It was not comforting to realize these Akatsuki people couldn't kill her. She couldn't kill herself and end her suffering. If she couldn't over power them, she would have to live with whatever they wanted to do to her. That though carried over to her bedroom. In the cabinets to the room's right she found her bag and pulled it out. Her t-shirt had been destroyed but she still had the bandeau she'd shoved into her bag, and her shorts had been washed and lay on a shelf near her bag.

She found a fresh hair tie and dug into the chocolate bar that miraculously hadn't melted to the bag's canvas. She sorted through all of the birth control wheels that lay on the bottom of the sack, counted them all and then took the one for that day. Her magazine was there too, the dog eared copy of Ninja Monthly with the tattered article in the very organization she was in the presence of. She left that where it was and continued digging through her bag. There was a picture of her mother, lotion, a pad of paper and a pen, her entire life was in this bag.

When she settled down on the bed again, the sun had set fully. By the time she fell asleep, the sun was cresting over the horizon.

* * *

The room was dark when sleep faded from Sika's system. She'd slept through the day and she couldn't have cared less. When Sika got around and forced herself out of hiding, she discovered it was around nine at night.

She wandered the well lit house, looking for a servant or the kitchen, whichever came first, but she wished it was the later. This place might not have had any pipes in the bathroom, but they had wires throughout the house connected to fixtures. She didn't stop to puzzle that, she just accepted the way things were.

The tawny haired girl had slept through all three meals, and she was starving. Finally some women toting a handful of towels pointed her in the direction of the kitchen and she made a B line that way. The halls were long and straight, every right angle brought her closer to food and her stomach was doing flips. Finally the hallway broke into an open planned kitchen made to accommodate a full staff.

Cabinets lined the walls and an array of pots and pans hung over a center island and behind that was a cooking hearth. Sitting on a stool talking with an older servant woman was Kisame, the burly and well muscled wielder of the Samehada, and one of the seven swordsmen of the mist. They both looked up when she entered the room.

"Could I help you?" The servant woman was quick to ask, standing up and brushing herself off.

"Please," Sika smiled, "is there any dinner left over?"

"Sure is," the woman grinned and then she turned and took a few steps away to put on a pan to heat some rice and vegetables for her. Sika hovered, her mouth watering and her gaze locked on the peanut sauce soaked goodness.

"Sika was it?" Kisame, with his rough voice and projecting tone, spoke up, grabbing Sika's attention.

"Yeah, that's me," she responded, turning to face him reluctantly to chew her lip. He didn't have his sword on him, but she knew he was dangerous. She wanted to stay away. He held her gaze as he flashed her a toothy grin and stuck out his band for her to shake.

"Put 'er there."

Sika came forward and shook his hand per requested. When she'd meet him prior he hadn't been nearly this friendly. His grip was firm and his hand nearly engulfed hers.

"Itachi told me this morning about something amazing you did. He said you broke Tsukuyomki. How'd that go down?" His tone was lax but he meant it quite hostile. Sika used her context clues to figure that one out. If he wanted to intimidate her he would have stood to loom over her smaller figure, but instead he kept a tight grip on her hand. She figured he was trying vaguely to threaten her.

"I don't know what that is," she replied, giving him a sideways glance. His expression didn't change. She wondered if Itachi had also presented him with her personal details.

"The leader comes from the leaf village's Uchiha clan, they have very special eyes," the shark man explained, "That genjutsu he cast on you is nearly impossible to break except for someone with the same eyes."

Kisame released her hand as the servant woman handed her a plate of food. Sika quickly dug in, glad to fill her stomach and glad to let go of the man's cold fingers.

"I don't know," she said between mouthfuls, "I asked my uh, I asked Lord Jashin to help me."

"What'd you say to him?" The man suddenly became very unimpressed. Sika wondered how long he'd been around Hidan.

"I just asked for help. It hurt so bad, but I wasn't sharing my pain. That's one of my commandments or whatever, I have to share," she rambled as the other woman brought her around a glass of water. She chugged it in one drink and asked for another. She was shoving food into her mouth at such an alarming rate she didn't think she could ever get full. She could see the disgust riding on Kisame's face.

"Anyway," he began, his tone much different, more relaxed, "Itachi asked me to give you a crash course in ninja training."

Sika chewed her food thoroughly for a moment before she answered. First of all the decision was already made. She would report to training, Itachi assigned it. Second of all, had she not told him that her new found God had broken the hallucination, he would have probably suggested it was his idea, as if, for some reason, her religion mattered.

"Sure," she said after swallowing, "whatever he wants."

"We'll start tomorrow then," the shark man said very matter of factly. Sika huffed.

"Tomorrow night, if you don't mind." She insisted.

* * *

Four in the afternoon seemed early all of a sudden. To someone who slept all day and stayed up all night it probably did feel early. It certainly did to Sika. When she finally drug herself outside to begin her training, the bags under her eyes were prominent.

Kisame was there waiting for her. He sat on the porch, waiting, and waiting impatiently by the way he stood up as soon as he noticed she'd emerged.

" 'bout time," the older man said, his voice gruff.

"Sorry. I've got a screwed up sleep schedule," she replied, very frank.

"I suggest you fix it," he returned, his tone more assertive. She didn't reply to that, only came off if the porch to pretend to check the footing of the would be training ground, a big field next to the house.

"I'd like some information on your skill set," Kisame spoke up, trying to pull her attention back to him. It didn't work. "If your going to be difficult then you can forget it," he wouldn't let her get the best of him.

"I'm thinking, thanks," she replied dryly. She noticed he was was very quick to act, he was aggressive, and she figured she had a long road before her with him.

"Well," she drawled, "I know how to play the flute, I can sew, I know how to cook a ton of stuff and I make a pretty good hot pot, uh, I," she would have continued babbling had be not cut her off.

"You know damn well I was asking about useful things," he growled, and she rolled her eyes.

She did know. She huffed and crossed her arms, turning to face him, "Okay. I've got zero control of my chakra, zero body conditioning, I know one Jutsu and I only know enough hand seals to cast it. That's it."

"Show me your genjutsu." He shot back, just as snarky.

Without further provoking, Sika turned to face the shark man square and set her feet a length apart. It'd been so long since she'd last done this, she'd almost forgotten how to call on her chakra.

She felt it stir deep in the pit of her stomach, the pulsing and churning with the sudden activation. She felt it surge under her skin. Wind, like a gentle breeze picked up around her as the aura of focused energy spread and it picked up a few locks of her hair. Then she wove hand signs.

Snake, ox, snake, horse, and then she formed the seal of confrontation, a common seal known as the universal sign of combat. She held her index and middle fingers near her mouth, her thumb placed gently over her other two curled fingers, and blew.

Kisame allowed himself to be caught in the jutsu, but after it took its hold, he wasn't sure if he would have been able to escape it. It reminded him of the sharingan, almost unavoidable, you were caught in the seconds it took to realize you were falling for it.

Another breeze drifted by, brushing his face gently with its sun kissed warmth and rose petal softness only to settle seconds after it was created. The once empty scented field was alive with the complimenting floral smells of Lemon balm, Easter Lilies, Morning Glories, and Sunflowers blended together without fighting for dominance. He could have swore he'd seen a cherry blossom petal float just out of reach too.

This wasn't a heavy feeling genjutsu, it was completely unlike all the others he'd felt and seen. If he hadn't watched her cast it he wouldn't of believed he was under the influence.

That was, until he tried to move. Telling his muscles to respond was like trying to teach a wolf to roll over, everything moved the opposite way it was supposed to. He tried to raise his hand to release the jutsu, but instead something in his leg twitched. When he tried it the other way, thinking his motor skills were reversed, but trying to move his leg caused his eyes to shut. Eventually everything stopped moving altogether and he worried his breathing would be next.

Sika released him herself with a hand on his shoulder, gently pulling him out of his trance. He hadn't moved from his spot, the scent of flowers lingering in the air. She stood next to him, a considerable amount shorter than him, looking up.

"Well?" She asked, unceremoniously.

It took him a second to reorder his thoughts and pull himself together. He looked down at her, his face blank in thought. Very slowly she retracted her hand.

"You need some work. You wasted a ton of chakra casting that, and in a fight where your needing all the help you can get, wasting chakra will cost you your life."

Sika had almost forgotten about that whole immortality thing again. It caught her off guard when he mentioned death. She stuck her hands in the pockets of her shorts and leaned away from him, relaxed, and drawled out her words, "I don't think we have to worry about me dying any time soon."

He seemed to get the picture. Sika honestly couldn't decide if living forever was a gift or a curse.

"Whatever. The enemy can still dismember you. It's happened to Hidan before," his replied, still gruff. She shrugged. He continued. " I think it's safe to assume that you have a water chakra nature since your from Kiri. I'm going to teach you chakra control first and foremost, basic academy skills, and then a couple more water based jutsu, and some taijutsu. Is there anything particular you'd like to learn?"

"I want to learn kenjutsu?" she offered, like it was a question, "my parents were both swordsmen. It's my heritage. And, you know, you are one of the seven swordsmen."

Kisame sat back down and cracked his neck while he thought that over. She wanted to learn his level of kenjutsu? It would have been easier for her to grow a third head, but, if she wanted to learn it he'd teach her. He had a little soft spot for kids that liked swords.

He heaved a heavy sigh.

"You said your parents were both swordsmen?" He asked, calmer and the mean spirit gone out of his voice, "and before you asked me if I knew your father. What was his name again? How do two ninja have a kid and leave her alone with no skills?"

"Otori, Shirasagi," she answered, "he and my mother forbade me from becoming a ninja. They said it was too dangerous."

"They were right," he replied halfheartedly, "what did they want you to do instead?"

"Well, I suspected from a young age I was being groomed to be somebody's wife, somebody very important. I think that fell though by the time I was eight or so, because then I got to learn things that actually matter. They let me go to school," she elaborated, "I mean, yeah, okay, I can arrange flowers, but I can also solve pretty complex math. While kids in the academy were learning to hit a target, I was learning the angle to hit it. You guys got that too, I'm sure, because fighting is a lot if angles, but I got it before I even held a weapon. There will be no bad habits to correct."

"Yeah, well you aren't any better off. You don't have the force to make the knife stick." His voice didn't sound impressed. Schooling did not equal skill. She wasn't any better off.

"But can I hit it don't I?" She shot back.

"Well I don't know, I've never seen you throw. Besides, that won't help you in a combat situation."

Sika shrugged. "Okay, yeah, that's true, _but I'm also immortal_."

Kisame face palmed.

* * *

So, as it turned out, Kisame did not shit around. The very next day Sika found herself with a sword in her hand. Okay, so it wasn't a katana like she wanted but it was a Bokken, which was close enough. It couldn't actually cut anything because it was made of wood, but it still left welts when it hit.

To be specific, it left welts on her skin when Kisame hit her with his.

He was faster, more powerful, more articulated, not to mention bigger. Sika knew he was going to be better than her, but she didn't think he was going to beat the shit out of her. Until she could start anticipating his movements she wouldn't make any progress, and two long hours were spent trying to match his movement.

He'd move right so she'd dodge left, only to be a half a second too slow. He'd swing to hit her leg, but she could never move her arm the right way after recovering from the last stinging strike. On an off chance she blocked him, he'd hit her anyway because she didn't have the strength to combat his swing. It was a good thing that she healed so quickly, no bruise or sore muscles stayed long.

Sika examined her skin with a childlike wonder as the long, straight, sword shaped welts faded, the blood trapped under her skin rapidly dissipating. She took a drink of her water and poked it gingerly, wincing when it still hurt just a little.

"So," she started, "am I particularly horrible at this or what?"

The shark man scoffed in to his water bottle, "not particularly, but your a beginner. Your defiantly horrible at this though."

"What am I doing wrong?" She asked, capping her own bottle and setting it down.

"Well first of all, your way too close to me," he replied, sheathing is practice blade, "and your not actively trying to gain the upper hand, your just trying, and failing, to block. Come at me like you mean it, don't just run away from me and flail your blade in to mine."

"Aren't we going to try again?" She asked when he reached for her Bokken too.

"Tomorrow. Let's work on something else."

So she handed the wooden sword over and took another drink of her water. "Chakra control?" She guessed.

"You got it." He grinned, sheathing her sword and setting them gently on the porch, "do you meditate?"

"No?" She replied, furrowing her eyebrows.

"Start," he said, "for now though, I want you to copy me."

Sika came closer. Very slowly he formed three hand signs, the first she recognized as snake, and then she felt his chakra spike. The hand signs ended in another snake sign and from his mouth he spat a small river. The water rushed from where it pooled at his feet, traveling behind him until it welled up in a single but powerful crashing wave. It only came up to her knees, and when the water settled it barely touched her toes. It had managed to knock her off balance, and Sika wondered what it would have been like if he'd wanted to hurt her.

Kisame spit and he covered his mouth to stifle a burp before he spoke, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "think you can do it?"

Sika shook her head. She probably could.

"It's called the exploding water wall. It doesn't actually explode, but it feels like it does," he continued, "you need to learn to focus your chakra in a way you can use it. If you make the wave too big, you'll hurt me, if you make it too small, I'll hurt you. Just make yours the same as mine. Got all that?"

Sika nodded again, "yeah, but can you show me the signs again?"

He demonstrated again, going slow this time. He was so fluid and fast at signs it was almost tragic to ask him to slow down. He over exaggerated the way he moved his fingers and said the name of the sign out loud. He hadn't focused any chakra, so nothing happened when he ended, except for a better understanding for Sika.

Snake, ox, tiger, snake, it was simple this time around, and she practiced them a few times before she started.

Sika felt her chakra stir as she called on it. She could feel the tight coil in her abdomen loosen and contract as her pathways opened. It was hard to decide how much she needed, at first she'd called on so much it created wind when it disturbed the air, but when she released some, it felt like too little. Chakra was different for every person, so it wasn't like she could ask Kisame, she just had to go with her gut. She wove the hand signs.

Sika felt something burst inside of her, and she instantly felt like she was going to vomit. She'd done something wrong, she could feel it in her chest and it felt like fizz had come up her nose. She swallowed hard in a very poor attempt to keep it down, but with her stomach and chest swelling, panic was beginning to seize her brain.

"God damn, spit it out!" Her teacher shouted.

Water burst foreword from her mouth like a fountain, rushing past her tongue and her teeth. It was tasteless, but the air smelled like rain right after. She felt like she'd very violently threw up, and taking a breathe after hurt. Her first sharp intake forced water down the wrong tube and she choked, coughing and sputtering until finally she got ahold of herself and looked up.

The training ground was covered in water, more so now than when her teacher had cast the water wall. The soil was saturated, unable to absorb any more water than it already had, so the pair was left standing in mud and an inch of water. When Sika looked up, her teacher was grinning, ever so slightly at her, some sort of strange glint in his eye.

"What?" She asked hesitantly, almost afraid to ask.

Kisame put his hands on his hips and allowed his grin to overtake his face, "Do it again."

* * *

Running on water was harder than walking on it, walking on it was marginally harder than even standing on it, but when a huge, blue, shark man is coming at you full force with a Bokken, you learn pretty quickly that you can either wade through knee deep water and fall on your face, or you can learn to summon chakra to your feet and run on it. At least, Sika did anyway.

In just one week, she was now proficient in the water wall technique, but only her newfound speed was helping her today. For this exercise, Sika was unarmed and banned from using ninjutsu. To learn Taijutsu, Kisame had insisted that it was essential.

The shark man brought the wooden blade down on her, and she thanked God, er, Jashin, he hadn't hit her, because that strike meant something. She dodged right. When he angled the blade and swiped at her again, she jumped back, left, right, back, left, up, duck.

And then she saw an opening, he'd left his legs unguarded, and she moved to sweep them out from under him. Of course Kisame had left himself open, he had to throw her a bone once in a while, or else she'd never have a chance to practice her hits. Truth be told, it didn't really hurt, okay it did sting a little, but he was sure it was reciprocated when he brought his foot back and kicked her across the battlefield.

Sika crumpled to the ground, clutching her gut. Tears welled in her eyes, but she had to stand up, because he was still rushing her. She had to scramble to her feet together out of the way, but at the speed he was moving, she knew she couldn't. Closing her eyes, she braced her self, crouched down, balled her fist and threw it.

It collided with Kisame's sword, wood splintering everywhere and stopped when she hit his chest. When she opened her eyes, her hand was bleeding and her teacher was staring down at her, looking almost as surprised as she was.

"I, I uh, I'm sorry," she stammered, pulling her scratched and wounded hand from his chest.

"You don't apologize to people you punch. They get even," he replied, and sent her flying again.

* * *

"Alright, so you can create water, but now you've got to learn to use It to your advantage." Kisame had gone though the trouble of setting up four targets on various points of the field. He intended on teaching her his Shark Water Bullet, because the regular Water Bullet was too mainstream.

"So, basically what it feels like is coughing up a baseball. It's hard and sort of oval shaped, and make sure to keep your tongue out of the way because it has sharp edges on the teeth," Kisame's description had Sika sighing. So, it was nothing like a baseball?

"So, I just, like, cough it up?" She asked, brushing off his inaccurate description.

"No, this is completely different from the water wall," Kisame explained, "it doesn't just go, you have will it and aim it using chakra. You don't have a lot of room for error, it's fast and powerful."

Sika nodded, but it was almost painful to hear those words. Though it was true she was never sore, that didn't mean she had chakra reserves that went on for days. Her stamina was building along with her strength, but chakra wasn't something that it took a just few weeks to gain more of, it took months, maybe even years. But until then Sika was stuck budgeting her depleted deserves and praying she didn't bust a chakra coil somewhere important. This training was intense. She didn't have time to take breaks or save up extra energy.

Apparently today was just going to be one of _those_ days.

"The hand signs for the regular water bullet are Tiger, Ox, Tiger, Rat. Focus your chakra like your creating the water wall, but at the last second I want you to channel it in to a stream. Once you've got that, we'll move on to the shark bullet," Kisame instructed, barking orders as usual in that gruff tone.

Yes. Today _was_ one of _those_ days.

* * *

Meditation had done Sika well over the last few weeks. It hadn't fixed her sleep schedule any, but it helped her control her chakra better. She could do everything better now, and she owed it mostly to her meditation. She threw punches harder now, she moved faster, swung her bokken like she meant it, and she was proud. She didn't care if her instructor was proud of her or not, she was proud if herself.

For as long as she spent in meditation, she thought it'd get easier and easier to begin, but it never did. It never got harder, but it also never got easier. She'd sit down, having just finished her after training bath, and finally around one in the morning she'd be ready to begin.

She found her mind drifting a lot when it was supposed to be empty. She thought about her training, her successes and her mistakes, and she thought about her instructor, and The leader, all held up in his leader room doing who knows what, but mostly she thought about the brothel.

It was weird, not being used. It was weird to be able to sit down and eat a decent meal, to gain weight and muscle and be worth something more than her weight in cash. It was weird not to be violated and humiliated every night of her life. She had all her own freedoms here, no man or woman could command her to do anything, especially if she didn't want to. Being able to choose meant so much to her.

Eventually she'd rein herself back in and get back on the task of meditation. It relaxed her after all.

After everyone else had gone to bed and it was just her and the moon, the time passed pretty slow. It was late nights like those that made her glad to be alive, and glad to be immortal.

* * *

The day Sika got her Katana, she cried.

At first she thought it was a trick, there was no way she'd improved this much in just six weeks, but Kisame insisted that she'd earned it.

She hugged him, tight, and thanked him up and down, and honestly he wasn't quite sure what to make of it. It was just a standard issue Katana, mid-grade and not in any way special. Itachi had a million of them and they were commonly sold used for pretty cheap. Then it occurred to him it wasn't just the gift she was so happy about.

"This is a dream, it's got to be a dream," she sputtered, sniffling and trying in vain to stop her dripping tears.

"I don't know why you find this so hard to believe," he teacher replied, peeling her off of him, "you had a talent to begin with. Combined with training under a ninja swordsmen, what'd you expect?"

She looked like she was hoping to combust. She had talent? Her of all people?

"Do you really mean that?" Her eyes sparkled and she grinned ear from ear.

He'd dug himself into a pretty deep hole here. Kisame shifted his weight from one foot to another. "I wouldn't call you a prodigy," he tested the waters, "but you might have been a top contender in your academy class."

Kisame wasn't good at praise, he knew it. He also didn't want to give her an inflated head. She was still low on the totem pole when it came to actual ninja work, but six weeks of marathon training and going from a civilian to a shinobi was pretty impressive, all quick learning aside.

The message of praise, However jumbled, got though to Sika. She was crying, laughing, juggling the sword and latching back on to hug her instructor, all while jumping up and down as emotional mess.

This had to be the happiest day of her life.

"Yeah, okay," Kisame tried in vain to peel her off of him again, "if you wanna keep your hands, you'd better get them off of me."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, jumping back from him, still clutching her katana, "I'm just so excited!"

He could tell. Shifting his weight again, he weighed his options. Well, he could just say 'so long' and be rid of her, or…

"You wanna go get some barbecue? To celebrate?"

Even if he hadn't gotten to know her very well (admittedly after that amount if time he should have), he knew she loved to eat.

"Oh!" She exclaimed again, "of course!"

"Hey!" A shrill voice bellowed over the training field, "I'm back! You miss me?"

"Hidan!" Sika shouted, spinning around. The Jashinist stood on the porch, looking no worst for wear. He had his hands on his hips and a smirk on his face, his three bladed scythe shone in the afternoon sun.

"Hidan, look!" Sika exclaimed, jutting out her new katana for him to see.

"You've been busy twerp," her laughed, "hey, come with me to the leader's office. I don't wanna have to tell the whole mission story twice."

Sika grinned, waved good bye to her instructor and the pair of Jashinists went running through the house after Kakuzu. The older man was waiting for his partner outside Itachi's office, and he was sort of suppressed to see Sika carrying a katana.

"What's that for?" He asked, observing her clutch the thing to her chest.

"Kisame said I earned it. I completed his kenjutsu program as well as his basic training program, I can make clones, I can climb trees, walk on water, the whole deal!" She was grinning ear to ear and her eyes were bright, her body trembled in both excitement and joy. Kakuzu didn't think he'd ever seen someone so happy.

The masked man gave her the best sentiment he could. "Congratulations," he replied, his voice monotone and seemingly uncaring. This time around, Sika didn't have to mistake his words. He actually cared, just a little.

So Kakuzu opened the door and the three filed in to the leader's office.

It was sort of dark inside, as usual. Itachi claimed bright light hurt his eyes, so his blinds were usually drawn and the Akatsuki leader used a dim lamp. He was seated at a low tea table, drinking warm tea and doing paper work, processing bounties and other contracts. Papers and pens scattered his work space, scrolls and ink spots married the mess of paper clips and staple pullers in unorganized chaos. Most of is work was diplomatic these days. He and his partner didn't see a lot of combat.

Itachi waited until his three guests had sat down to begin.

"Your two weeks late," itachi noted, his eyes looking droopy and his skin paler than usual. Sika would have thought him to be sick if she hadn't known better.

"Oh get off it," Hidan interjected, "not like we wanted to."

"Hidan," Kakuzu warned, glaring at him momentarily out of the corner if his eye. Begrudgingly, Hidan settled down and Kakuzu continued, "we had complications. We were forced to lay low for an extended amount of time, and then we had an issue with the target."

"Oh?" The leader said, looking unimpressed and condescending.

Kakuzu looked irked. "Yes. Turns out the brother of the target was also a bounty hunter. If Hidan hadn't mouthed off, we would have gotten done much sooner."

"Hey!" Hidan cut in, "I didn't mouth off! That guy had it coming!"

Itachi rose a hand to silence him and sighed.

"Did you collect?" The ebony haired man asked.

"Don't I always?" Kakuzu narrowed his eyes as he pulled a bag out of his cloak and slid it across the table, the familiar clinking of coins rustling all the while. He didn't look to happy about it, the treasure was never happy about giving up money. Itachi picked it up and set it aside.

"You're dismissed," the leader said finally, "Sika, I'd like you to stay."

"Sir," Kakuzu regarded, picking up a pair of mission report forms from the table and stood up, his old bones seemingly not giving him too much trouble. Hidan ruffled her hair on his way out, for once leaving wordlessly, and the door sliding on its track and shutting with a wooden 'clank.'

"What did you need, leader?" She asked in a soft voice, her smile not fading.

"Kisame informed me this morning that he decided to pass you. I can see he already gave you your reward," Itachi began flatly, "Would you like some tea?"

"Please," she replied. Careful not to spill it on his paperwork, Itachi poured her a cup. He pushed the steaming cup her way and caught her eye as she looked up to thank him.

"Now," he began after a fairly quick, comfortable silence, "I think a final exam is in order. Assuming you pass, you'll go on to sign an oath of loyalty, and from there you'll go on to assisting members. A superior officer will of course be there to help you."

"I'm ready now, I'll take any test you want," Sika replied, her confidence growing.

Itachi rose his eyebrows, "any test?" He asked, his tone unchanging.

"Any test," Sika agreed.

"Very well. Your task will be to fight me."

* * *

So, there was a lot of charater development in this chapter. We saw Sika's brain get occupied by "The Haze," We saw her come to terms with her time at the whore house, and we saw her recignize that shesactually worth more than what someone will pay for her. thats not to say shes not till reeling with the trauma. Anyway, I'd like to make a tiny note here in this chapter.

I am anti-rape Akatsuki.

Yeah, they're criminals, and yeah this universe is not the one the main storyline follows, but I don't believe an Akatsuki member, no matter, not even the especially horrible ones like Sasori, would ever rape.

The entire point of Sika's character is to represent battered women. She's a rape survivor, she's a poverty survivor, she was a sex worker, and the Akatsuki is a metaphor for better days to come for her. She has something to look foreword to. Friends, eventually, a stable job, and the ability to protect herself even when she feels so helpless from her psychological trauma.

**I made Sika because more people should know that almost three hundred thousand rapes occur a year, those are not counting ones that go unreported or happen to kids under twelve. A rape happens every 107 seconds and a women is more likely to be raped than attacked by a shark.**

**One in four girls will be sexually assaulted in some way.**

**There are 42 MILLION sex workers across the world. These things should not happen. We should be outraged**.

I like to include little messages in my stories. They are not always happy ones.

_Also, thanks to my friend and google docs for fixing my errors an helping me along._

_Please review people! I want your input!_


	5. Chapter 5: Neophyte

Chapter 5: Neophyte

* * *

"She's to do this by herself. There will be absolutely no aid given to her, no matter what happens," Itachi's voice projected over the training field. He was excited, Sika decided, with that strange undertone to his voice. The Akatsuki leader cast a sideways glance at Hidan, who stood leaning up against the building.

"What?" The immortal man asked, irritated, "you have no faith in me, seriously."

His leader didn't reply.

Kisame would officiate, and as he stepped up, he spoke to both parties. "This fight will have no hindrances. If you have it on your person, use it. Do either of you have any issues with the rules?"

Kisame turned to his partner, Itachi shook his head, he had no problem.

Kisame then turned to his student, and he cast her a look she couldn't read. Sika chewed her cheek, her eyes flicking over her competition, her teacher standing between them, and the spectators on the shaded porch nearby. It was noon and the summer sun was heating up.

"I'm not betting on this shit with you, you bastard," she heard Hidan speak in a poor attempt to be quiet.

"You're insufferable," the older immortal muttered.

She'd been too cocky, Sika decided, wayyyy too cocky.

Glancing down at her shadow and then back up at her opponent, she decided it was too late now. "Fine with me."

"Begin!" Kisame bellowed, jumping back from the soggy ground of the training field and landing with a thump not far away from his peers.

Immediately, Sika grabbed for her katana holstered on her back, drawing it swiftly to knock down a group of kunai knives thrown at her torso. They were a distraction though, as soon as her eyes focused on the projectiles, Itachi moved. No sooner had she knocked the knives away, Itachi was there.

He was so fast, Sika couldn't believe it. He was there, and then he wasn't again, only to reappear behind her. His elbow came down between her shoulder blades, she went down, redirecting the strike she'd prepared towards his legs, but Itachi was faster yet still, and landed a kick that she was barely able to block. He sent her flying, but using chakra she was able to stop herself short of crashing and got on her feet.

Don't look at his eyes, don't look at his eyes, don't look at his eyes, Sika repeated over and over, don't look at his eyes, keeping her own eyes low.

Sika found a place on his chest and focused. There, she'd hit him there.

She drew two things from the split second they'd been engaged. One, Itachi was fast. Faster than she was. Two, she couldn't fight him with taijutsu. He could hit her harder than she could counter, and even if it wouldn't hurt for long, it was a good way to lose.

As quick as she could, Sika wove hand signs and pulled her chakra. She felt it tug deep inside of her, her training hadn't left her with much left over to use in this fight, and it wasn't a good sort of tug. From the ground, a quiet sucking omitted from the soil, and under her feet Sika could feel the grassy mush turning to mud. She and Kisame had been using this training ground for weeks and it was pretty much water logged. Plenty of water to use for her jutsu.

From the earth behind her sprung a fluid, clear serpent. It roared as it cut through the air, spraying mist behind it as it searched for its target.

Not to be underestimated, Itachi threw from his mouth a grand fireball. Sika was sure her dragon could swallow it, fizzle it out like nothing. After that she could reform the head or cast another, but when the two collided head on, both attacks burst. The resulting explosion had Sika covering her eyes, the brightness over shone the roar and hiss that followed. When she looked back at her opponent, the battle field was covered in a thin and quickly dissipating mist.

This was unplanned, but okay. Let's roll with it.

Sika decided to rush him, disregarding her previous thought, unsure if that decision was good or bad. She wove hand signs, creating three clones of herself that split off from the path of the original. When the visibility returned, however, the clones were not in place. All three clones were even with her opponent, the original plan had been to attack him from all sides, but now or never.

Her clones closed in, but with his red eyes spinning, Itachi knew that the original wasn't with them. These were academy grade clones, they were practically transparent anyway. In the time it took for him to analyze, Sika neared the Akatsuki leader with her blade drawn once again.

She could feel her heartbeat in her throat. Her pulse rung so loudly in her ears she couldn't hear anything besides the rushing of blood. She screamed when she came down on him, unable to hold it in any longer. The excitement, the adrenaline, the terror, all fighting for just one second of feeling.

"Take him down, Sika," something inside her was shouting over her own voice, "Make every movement count."

She could do that. She would do that.

She swung, the blade of her katana and split him in half, her left foot planting firmly into the mud, her right sliding, guiding her blade with her weight. No sooner had her blade cleared the man's body did it disappear in a cloud of smoke.

A clone.

He'd had the same idea.

She turned just in time to block another hit to her back. His fist connected with her forearm as she grabbed for his wrist. She didn't have enough power to throw him, but as she tore her arm she'd used to block away, she pulled him towards her and used the leverage to reel back and mule kick him with both feet in the chest.

She ended up scrambling to the ground, barely juggling her sword in a way that didn't remove her flesh from her thigh. When she stood up and spun around several feet away, the Akatsuki leader was hunched over and breathing a little ragged.

"Kill him, do it Sika!" The voice from earlier shouted. That was Hidan's voice, she realized. He was cheering for her. That was a little harsh, she thought, but he was right. She should attack Itachi while he was recovering.

She wove hand signs again and this time she could feel water welling where chakra was made. Her cheeks puffed, her throat stretched and finally her chest expanded, and she spat out a ball of water that quickly morphed its way into the shape of a shark.

The liquid monster bore its teeth at its adversary, it's aim straight and true and heading for Itachi. The air smelt heavily like a storm was brewing, and both of their cloths were moist already. When the shark bomb exploded, Itachi should have been knocked back, he should have taken on water and damage. Instead, in a puff of white smoke, Sika's shark hit nothing more than a tree branch. The replacement jutsu.

Itachi appeared next to her, so fast Sika didn't even have time to turn her head to look. The last thing she saw before she went sliding across the muddy ground was the leader's foot about an inch from her face. Her blade fell from her hand.

When she opened her eyes, determined to stand and fight still, Itachi was standing over here, a hand sign held on his left hand and her katana in her left. He'd cut her to pieces or incinerate her if she moved. She wasn't sure how well she'd heal from either of those.

She swallowed hard.

"Do you surrender?" Kisame called.

Sika's eyes glanced in every direction. He was faster than her, before she could make a sign or go for a weapon, she probably wouldn't have a hand. God, he was so fast. They hadn't been fighting for fifteen minutes, and she was already out of options. He'd countered every attack she'd thrown at him, and the only hit she did land had been in a desperate to get away. He was only a bit winded, and he was most certainly holding out on her.

She was laying in the mud, panting hard and shaking in excited fear.

He was towering over her, his face void of emotion as usual.

"I don't," Sika insisted. There had to be something. All couldn't be lost.

"What could you possibly do?" The Akatsuki leader spoke levely. Sika couldn't answer him.

"Do you surrender, Sika?" Kisame asked again.

The word had to be forced out of her mouth, but it came. "Yes."

Sika lay her head back, grinding her hair into the mud and covered her eyes with her hands. This was unbelievable. There was no way she'd be accepted if she couldn't even last fifteen minutes. She couldn't see Itachi's face and she didn't want to.

"You will meet me in my office in two hours," came Itachi's empty voice. Sika nodded instead of replying. She heard Itachi's footsteps leaving through the sloppy ground, and someone else approached her.

"That was pathetic."

Sika groaned. "Please just leave me here to die, would you?"

"No can do," Hidan rejected, "we're leaving right after you and red eyes get done with your little chat."

Sika groaned again and moved her hands away from her eyes. The silver haired man stood above her, hands on his hips and a grin set on his features. He extended a hand to her. "Your face is caked with mud."

Sika took his hand and let him help to pull her to her feet. She still had some lingering soreness from being kicked, and chakra exhaustion probably wasn't far off, but she could stand and begin to pull clumps of mud from her hair.

Kakuzu still stood against the wall. It was kind of hard to tell what he was feeling because of the mask he wore, but his eyes were hard and judgmental. They regarded each other for just a moment before the emerald eyed man huffed. He turned his back to his partner and to Sika, walking away and disappearing back into the house.

"Never mind that jackass, he's just pissed because he lost a bet," Hidan insisted, wiping some mud off of his hand and on to his pants.

"I thought you weren't gonna wager on me," Sika asked, furrowing her eyebrows in confusion.

"I didn't. Kisame bet with him though, he bet a hundred bucks that you wouldn't be able to land three hits, and you only hit him once," Hidan informed, "Kisame was pissed."

"Kisame bet on me? Really?" Sika asked in disbelief. Her teacher had really had that much faith in her against someone like Itachi?

Hidan rolled his eyes and shifted his weight to his left, "Yeah, and he's going to hell for it. Money is a sin no matter how you look at it. Hey, remind me, I've got a book for you about lesser sins."

"Yeah, sure, okay, hey, have you seen my katana?" The tawny haired girl asked in a hurry. She clutched for the sheath, finding it still strapped to her but the blade missing.

It was Hidan's turn to look surprised. "Yeah, Itachi look it, but-"

Sika revolved face and ran, sprinting the last few feet before jumping up on to the porch and taking off through the house. She didn't care if she was tracking mud everywhere, she needed to find her teacher. She ran to his room first, her feet pounding on the ancient hardwood floors, but when he wasn't there, or in the kitchen, the drawing room, or the sun room, she knew immediately where he'd gone.

Panting even harder than she had after the fight, Sika's feet finally came to rest outside Itachi's door. She doubled over, putting her hands on her knees to catch her breathe. She could see the mud covering the back of her legs and she could feel it hardening in her hair and on her cloths. She was also covered in sweat, she realized, as it beaded down her forehead. She stood up, putting her hands on the small of her back for extra support, and breathed in deep. She was able to stand when she rasped on the wood frame of rice paper door, her chest no longer heaving.

"Enter," Itachi droned. Sika slid open the door.

"You are an hour and forty five minutes early," the Uchiha spoke, looking up from the low tea table that previously doubled as a desk. All of the leaders paperwork had been packed up and assumably put in the black leather bag near the door. Sika nearly tripped over it as she stepped into the room. Today, the leader was using the tea table for its intended purpose.

Kisame sat with him, a cup of tea in front of him as well. Samehada leaned on a wall not far away, and each of the men donned their red clouded cloak.

"I know, and I know I'm muddy, and gross, and whatever," she stammered, "but I need to talk to Kisame."

The leader's gaze flicked from her to his partner and then back to her. "Ah."

"What is it?" The blue skinned men asked, not particularly surprised or annoyed. She'd thought he'd be annoyed.

"I came to ask you a question," she confessed, a certain urgency to her voice, "Hidan told me about-oh, whatever. Did you really think I could do it? Did you really think that?"

Kisame sat back and thought long and hard what he was going to say. It was very clear to him that Sika had not only misinterpreted the bet as something other than a mindless chance at making money, but she'd also looked way too far into it. He knew a little about her, he knew she was an orphan, and he knew what it was like to think your teacher cared and believed in you. Despite whatever it did to her feelings Kisame had to tell her the truth, but he might sugar coat it just a little.

"Well," he drawled, "It was just a bet, not a reflection on you. Besides, it won't affect your consideration to the group."

"I see," She swallowed hard. She directed her attention down at her hands, resting on her thighs. She got it now. He hadn't had faith in her after all.

Kisame had to stop again and think. He hadn't meant to kill her confidence, "I've already told you what I think. No one expected you to win in a fight with Itachi anyway."

Of course not. Sika knew that. She drew in a sharp breath and held it a moment before she exhaled slowly.

"Tell me," Itachi began, picking up the coat tails of their conversation, "what is your goal, Sika?"

"My goal?" She mocked, looking up again. It was her turn to think. "I don't suppose I have one."

"I understood that your goal was to find your father. That isn't true?" Itachi questioned.

"Well, yes, I want to find him. I always have, but that's a different kind of bar to reach," Sika tried to explain, but she found it difficult. If she never achieved that goal, would it be upsetting? If she was going to be perfectly honest with herself, her father had always seemed like a far off fantasy land. Like he was unreachable. Even now, with hired help, it didn't seem like a reality.

Itachi continued. "People who join Akatsuki must be willing to give up their time, to give up their personal lives. I am, first and foremost, a member of Akatsuki. I am a shinobi, an Uchiha and a man second. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Sika nodded. Itachi demanded devotion above all else.

"Being a member of this organization asks you to disregard your own self and act for the whole. You might be asked to do things that is against your moral code. You might be asked to commit a sin in your religion. Do you still follow me?" Itachi asked, unmoving.

"I do," Sika agreed.

Itachi took a sip of his tea and paused for a moment. His eyes focused down on the steaming cup between his hands.

"You didn't give me much time to consider your skills. I did notice your tactical reasoning is all over the place. Also, your slow, you lack implosion, not to mention, you didn't know when to give up," Itachi scolded her in a condemning tone that had Sika ducking her head in shame. From his side, he pulled her katana, now free of mud, and lay it gently in the table in front of him. "But you held on longer than I originally thought. I suppose it'd be a waste of resources to reject you."

Immediately Sika's head snapped up. She couldn't tell if he was being positive or condescending.

"You know, she did learn B ranked ninjutsu without prior training. I think if she had more time, she would have been better. After all, she's used to sparring with me," Kisame spoke carefully and quietly. He was sticking his neck out for her. Sika couldn't believe her ears. Itachi seemed to consider that. He sighed and focused on his cup again, leaving the room silent for a few moments.

"I suppose there will be more time for more training. From the little I've seen, I don't think that your job won't be that hard for you."

Sika sat still, her gaze still focused on the Akatsuki leader. She waited for the rejection or the acceptance. With his tone and the apparent emotional range of a teaspoon, Sika wasn't exactly sure what to make of his words. The trio shared a sort of uncomfortable silence. Itachi, who thought he'd been very clear, intern waited for her response.

"Sika," Kisame spoke, clearly the only one aware of what was going on, "he just let you in."

"Oh!" She exclaimed, her eyes lighting up and her shoulders straightening, "oh, my god, thank you so much!"

"You're most welcome," the black haired man droned, "I have a folder for you, contained is a list of rules, a list of formal policies and a paper with a summoning seal that you're required to tattoo somewhere on your body. The back of the earlobe is a very popular place. I have here a summoning contract."

From his cloak, Itachi produced a hunter green scroll, decorated with golden accents and sealed with a bit of purple wax. Quickly and quietly, he peeled the wax from the page and unwound it. The scroll rolled off of the table and on to the floor, each rust colored, brown name staining it page to leave behind life as they knew it to become another watchdog in the pack. Sika tried not to think about how many names on this list no longer belonged to anyone living. The scroll had almost undone itself by the time a blank space appeared.

"You sign your in blood," Itachi instructed, and motioned Sika over. The girl stood up, wandered over, and knelt down on an unoccupied seat at the table. She grabbed her sword and sliced one finger open on the sharp edge.

Sika prided herself on her calligraphy skills. She'd learned while growing up to write elegantly, and her name was the nicest looking on the list.

"Do you have any other questions?" Itachi asked, raising a fist up to his mouth to stifle a cough.

"Just one, if you don't mind," Sika replied, sticking her bleeding finger into her mouth, "what is the purpose of this organization? Er, rather, what are we hoping to achieve?"

That seemed to disturb Itachi a little. Alright, so this was a personal question.

"Akatsuki was created in order to protect those precious to us," he began carefully. He stopped short, set his jaw on edge for a moment and then continued in a vague sort of tone, "if the world improves because of our efforts, then that's a plus too."

He had someone he was looking out for. That was pretty noble of him.

"I had you figured all wrong," Sika confessed, smiling if only slightly.

"Most people do."

* * *

Five hours down the road, the traditional Japanese palace was nothing but a memory. She'd slung her backpack on her back and trotted after Kakuzu and Hidan, following them back up the road they'd came and out of town.

The walking wasn't bad and the scenery was nice, for being in the land of lighting that is. Usually the violent storms that were the namesake of the country destroyed everything in their path, but this area was surprisingly nice. Any long snapped off trees became a home for plants and animals, and the drainage ditches flowed into vast, sparkling lakes.

Her traveling partners had been quiet. Kakuzu lead the group with his eyes focused south. He figured they'd reach grass country in a week, maybe ten days, and he was intent on making it there on time.

Hidan didn't much seem to care. He was busy looking around to, studying the landscape and observing it in quiet judgement. Sika wasn't sure what to make of that.

"You know, I've been thinking," Hidan began after a particularly long silence.

"Oh no," Sika snickered, earning her an irritated glare.

"Shut up and let me talk," Hidan continued anyway. "I think you could have beat red eyes if you'd been trained worth a shit."

"Kisame trained me for my affinity. Itachi has a fire affinity right? I should have-" Sika tried to explain but was cut off.

"No, that's not what I mean," Hidan interrupted, He'd attracted Kakuzu's attention now. "I mean he didn't train you to fight. You did drills. He trained you to spar. Nobody ever got hurt when you trained, right? That's the issue."

"Is that why you were screaming-Er, encouraging me loudly to kill Itachi?" Sika asked, wincing as she stepped on a particularly sharp rock.

"What are you talking about?" The male Jashinist asked, looking back at her confused.

"That wasn't you? I swear to god I heard your voice," Sika pressed.

"Nobody said anything while you guys fought," he looked very serious for a moment and then he scoffed, smirking, "bastard would have bit my head off if I had, and then I would have had to kick his ass."

Sika furrowed her eyebrows. She'd been sure that was Hidan's voice.

"Anyway, we're off topic. I'm gonna teach you to kick everybody's ass in one hit," Hidan's smirk widened.

"One hit?" Sika mocked, the voice seemingly forgotten.

"Yeah. All you gotta do is draw a prayer circle and get a little of the enemy's blood. Stab yourself somewhere vital and it's all over," he could see stars in his little convert's eyes.

"Did you design it?" Sika asked, jogging up closer to him.

"Nah, I found it in some old scripture book. Works pretty well though."

Sika mulled that over. Kill her enemy in one hit? Kill somebody in just one move? That sounded too good to be true. Yeah, okay, she had to stab herself, but it wasn't like she wasn't suicidal to begin with.

"Oh, shit, Sika," Hidan exclaimed suddenly, looking over at her, " It's probably a good idea for you to make an offering as soon as possible. Or else you won't be able to keep your immortality. We can test the jutsu out in the next town."

"Okay," she replied. Honestly though, she'd have to think about that one. She wasn't used to this immortality thing, and she still wasn't sure if she wanted to be.

* * *

The trio stopped at the first sign of civilization they stumbled upon somewhere deep in the land of hot water. Civilization meant people, Hidan insisted, and people meant sacrifices.

He was going to show her his technique as soon as night fell (they needed cover), but first they needed to get settled into their hotel.

The fat woman at the desk had no issues renting her room out to a pair of ninja, but their traveling companion, she said, not a chance.

"I'm sorry, you two can go right ahead but I just can't have her tracking dirt through my halls," the woman said around her cigarette, "Wash your feet off and then you can go up."

Simultaneously, both Akatsuki men turned around to look at Sika's feet. She was pretty dirty to begin with. She'd never showered after he fight with her newfound leader, but her feet were by far the worst. Mud clung to her skin all the way up to her knees, but her soles were completely black.

"Where are your shoes?" Kakuzu demanded.

"I don't have any," Sika replied, sort of sheepish. Really? Had neither of them noticed until now?

Kakuzu groaned and instructed his complaining partner to chaperone her as she tried to scrub the dirt from her skin. He still didn't trust her, even if it was only to sneak around back and use the hotel's hose. The water was clear when it left the nozzle, but by the time it hit the grass it was black.

Satisfied she'd gotten as clean as she could without an actual warm shower, Sika and Hidan went up to find the room.

Hot water country, Sika knew, used to be a ninja village. She'd read about it in Ninja Monthly when it disbanded some years ago and became a tourist trap. She also knew her friend harbored a certain contempt for the country he once called home, because he refused to shut up about it.

Every little thing about everything pissed him off. Sika could even hear him bitching about "the great implications of this" through the bathroom door and over the shower running.

"Seriously, this place is a disgrace. People were meant to destroy. Ninja were meant to kill, not serve sweaty tourists, I mean, that right there in condemning," Hidan ranted, looking disapprovingly out the room's picture window.

"I've heard it all before," Kakuzu grumbled, looking quite pissed off himself, "shut your trap."

"I'm really hungry," Sika offered, hoping one of them would agree to take her to eat just to get away from the other. She had no such luck.

"I'd like to kill the guy that thought this tourist trap shit up. Man, I'd hang him with his own intestines, I'd rip his kidneys out and feed them to him, I'd-"

"Hidan!" Kakuzu bellowed, "enough!"

"Tch! As if you understood!" Hidan hissed, turning back to the window, "your shitty ass village kicked your ass out! Like hell if you understood the principles of what happened here."

Kakuzu looked murderous. He stood up, knife in hand and ready to gut the priest like a trout. Sika noticed. She knew she couldn't stop the emerald eyed man, but maybe she could distract him.

"Kakuzu," she tread carefully, stopping her hand short if touching his shoulder. She liked her fingers, she wanted to keep them.

"What is it?" He growled, turning to face her, knife still bared like a single, metal fang.

"Well uh, I was just wondering if maybe you'd spar with me or something, Kisame said I should-" She should have known better, she decided after narrowly missing the back of his hand as he went to slap her. She was going to say her former teacher wanted her to stay on top of her training. She might not have to spar, this looked like it was going to turn into a real fight.

"What's with you?" she demanded.

"I'm going backwards on this little game of hide and go seek. I don't think you realize how much the opportunity cost of me to go looking for your father is, or rather, how much it's not making me now that Itachi's made this little endeavor free for you. I don't have any extra time to waste on you," the miser barked, his eyes hard and hateful. She was a pest, the bad apple in his barrel. She was like a swarm of locust, except worse.

That was offensive. Sika scoffed. "It's too god damn bad you're stuck with me!"

"I'd like to see both of you pests rot in a hole," he snarled. She could see his face twist in irritation under the mask and his hand clenched into a fist.

"What crawled up your ass and died?" Sika muttered, backing off. She'd sized him up and Sika knew she couldn't take him.

"Sika, let's just go, this old bastard is so senile he'd pick a fight with a rock," Hidan growled crossing the room to take her by the wrist. She tried to struggle free, she didn't need to be drug, but he refused.

"A rock would be more pleasant," kakuzu suggested as Hidan glowered at him, dragging Sika out the door in a death grip. She finally struggled free from his grip in the lobby of the hotel, after nearly falling down a flight of stairs.

They spilled out into the street, her trailing after him as he blazed a path though the people. They stopped at the first food stand they found and bought dinner. It happened to be a fried meat stand and Sika was all for protein. She'd snatched a third skewer of pork out of his hand before he'd even finished with his first.

"Do you even chew?" He asked her dryly, she shook her head and she thought he might have called her a smart ass though a scoff.

"How am I gonna know who's good to sacrifice?" She asked around a bite of food. He took a second to chew before he answered.

"There isn't like, a set thing that lord Jashin looks for in an offering. The object is offering, not even necessarily a sacrifice. Most Jashinists just make item offerings, or they sacrifice an animal. It's all in your intent."

"So then why am I after a person?" She asked, furrowing her eyebrows. She didn't really want to kill anyone if it wasn't her job. Something about killing for religion rubbed her the wrong way. If she killed for Akatsuki, it was on Itachi's hands.

That was a sin, she realized, killing for the equivalent to money. This was getting difficult.

"Because I'm not sure if you'd get to stay alive if you didn't. I was the only immortal. I don't know if human sacrifices are keeping me alive, but I don't want to quit and find out," he huffed, holding up a stick of his meat so she couldn't steal it from him. She'd had four already and he was barely on his second.

"Are you that afraid to die?" She asked brashly. He didn't even flinch.

"No, I'm afraid to piss off my god. You should be too," he replied, casting her a sideways glare.

That was fair, Sika decided, grabbing for the food held above her head. He let her have it and decided to procure them another food source. This time it was eel and then dango further down the street.

"I was thinking maybe I should sacrifice a criminal," Sika mused, munching on the skinny fish. She found a package of barbecue sauce on the side of another stand and drenched it in it. The salt in condiments was no good according to her cheap ass madame, Sika was gonna live this up while she had the chance. Hidan made another face at her.

"Yeah, sure. Just remember we're criminals," he grunted, handing her the rest of his food. He wasn't hungry anymore.

"No, your a criminal," she corrected, taking possession of the food on a stick, "I'm only sort of a criminal."

He rolled his eyes.

They spent the rest of the time until sundown doing laps of the small village. It was centered around an extravagant bath house and had a sizable red light district, something they both wanted to avoid. When night fell, the town glowed, every shop with its own neon, but even then it only lit so much.

Down one of the grungy side alleyways between a bar and a brothel, the Jashinists cruised for the right person to meet their need. They hadn't gone into the red light district, but this narrow passage was on its border. Hidan wasn't really concerned with finding her criminal like she'd wanted, any punk that fell out of these buildings would do. Smoke billowed out the windows to his right and the obnoxious noises to his left was driving him nuts. The sooner they got out of here the better.

A door up ahead swung open and a man about their age stepped out to smoke a cigarette. His mop of black hairs shielding his features from view. He didn't even look up at them. His shirt was off and the soft glow of pink lights cast out into the alley. That room let out of a brothel, and as they passed, Sika could plainly see a naked woman sitting up on the room's bed, her head in her hands.

Maybe a criminal wasn't what she should be looking for. Maybe she should be looking fur sinners instead. That girl had sold herself for sex, against her will but she'd still done it, and this man had bought. Sika wasn't sure if buying send was as bad as selling it in the eyes of her lord, but in her eyes, he was more guilty than her.

Sika nudged her partner in crime. He looked over at her from the corner of his eye, and without further conversation, Sika turned and blasted the stranger with a swift punch to his jugular. He didn't exactly go flying, but it was enough to knock him to the ground and out his cigarette.

"What the hell?" He shouted horsely, causing her to jump him, covering his mouth and pinching his nose in attempt to deprive him of air. He thrashed, trying desperately to kick, slap, hit, bite, whatever it took to get her off of him.

Sika decided to straddle him, using either of her knees to pin down his biceps, but his lower arms still seized, punching her wherever he could gain ground. The leg, the hip, the side, a particularly hard blow to the stomach winded her, but not enough for her to give up.

"Don't kill him right away!" Hidan shouted, standing back from them.

Sika swore and took her hand off his mouth. Immediately, the man started screaming, so she was forced to remove her hand from his nose to cover his mouth.

The whore in the hotel room was looking at them through tear stained eyes. Hidan stood beyond the door, unable to see in the room and unable to be seen. Sika looked up, eyes searching for an object to subdue the man with when their gaze meet. Something passed between them, something knowing and concerned. Sika's attention flicked down as the man tried to club her with a closed fist, she clicked her tongue in annoyance and moved to pin his hand to the ground and gave his face a rough shove. When she looked up again, the girl was collecting her robe from the ground, quietly excusing herself and disappearing behind the closed door.

Good, Sika thought, less interference.

"God damn it," Hidan swore, looking behind him, "somebody's coming."

So, without help, Sika drug the man inside the room by his hair and Hidan shut the door behind him.

"Okay," Hidan began, pulling his pike from his cloak. He cast it out, the metal spear unnesting from itself and locking into place. "Here, draw a rosary circle with your blood."

He handed her the pike but she rejected it in favor of unsheathing her sword. It was sort of difficult to maneuver the blade with the man screaming and struggling. She'd threw her meager weight around, but it hadn't been enough to stop him from freaking out. Eventually Hidan just out right clubbed him with a closed fist, knocking him down to a whining mess on the floor. Both people towering over him held weapons, and the man was sure he knew what they intended to do with them. He submitted, his fear having got the best of him for a moment.

Sika stood still, looking over her arm thoughtfully before she just decided to slice down from her shoulder to her elbow in a single straight line, unable to use her wrists since Kakuzu's threads still covered them.

She'd thought about doing that for so long.

Blood ran from her vein, painting her arm a dark crimson that ran in tendrils down to the floor where it pooled, stray droplets landing on her soon to be victims neck and unclothed back. Under the strange lighting, her blood looked almost black. Her blade was so sharp she hadn't even felt it, but it stung in the open air.

Thinking it easier to use her foot than her hand, the bottoms of her bare feet drug through the puddle and spread her life force in to a lopsided circle. The triangle was better shaped though, all sides perfectly equal.

"Oh god, oh lord, please," the man lying at her feet whimpered, "please don't kill me, I'll do whatever you want. Anything!"

Looking down at this man, Sika couldn't help but feel a little conflicted. It was too late for him, she wasn't going to go back on this just because something inside her felt off. If she was going to be honest with herself, she didn't feel guilty or even the least bit bad for him. She thought maybe the feeling in the pit of her stomach was hesitance, but then, she realized, it was excitement.

Her next move was to cut the man's cheek. He shrieked, his head snapping sideways and tried in vain to get away. He shot up, getting quickly to his feet but Sika still had a strong grip on his hair and with a hard yank she had him bent over with her sword on the back of his neck, threatening to end his worthless life where he stood.

"If you scream, I'll kill you. If you move, I'll kill you," her voice was cold and harsh. The man whimpered louder, his nose beginning to run. His chest heaved, hyperventilating, and then Sika realized he was crying.

It perked her interest, but she didn't have any second thoughts. Slowly, she moved the edge away from his neck and swiveled her sword from between her thumb and pointer finger to angle it downward pointing the opposite way and freeing up her thumb to swipe across the man's cheek to bring his blood to her lips.

Hidan loomed nearby, watching her intently but unwilling to hold her hand. She'd been listening, that much was clear, she never even so much as looked at him for reassurance.

She marveled as her skin bloomed black under the rose colored lighting, outlining her bones. She touched herself, but her skin didn't feel any different. Her hands highlighted each of the tiny bones in each of her fingers. She could see her ribs, and for once it wasn't because she was skinny.

A surge excitement overtook her. The usual calm lull of her mind was gone, replaced by the prickling feeling of murderous intent. This man was weeping, praying to his heathen God and begging her for his life but it all fell on deaf ears. She literally couldn't hear him over her pulse beating loud. A smile crept on to her face and she licked her lips, her breath coming in hard. She sucked in air and held it. Swiveling her wrist and raising the honed edge above her head, she turned her aim to herself.

Kill him. Kill him. Kill him, kill him, kill him!

Her body forced her to exhale when the sword finally lodged itself in her abdomen. Pain bubbled to the surface, following her blood as it flowed out over her skin. It soaked her bandeau, running over the curve of her breasts and down her stomach until it soaked into her shorts. Sika's voice caught in her throat. It hadn't even gone all the way though.

He knees locked on their own as her hand fell from the man's hair. She could see him, writhing in pain on the ground and clutching his chest as if he'd been the one stabbed. She couldn't even hear her blood pump anymore, only silence. Had she struck her own heart?

Hidan was there at her side, moving quickly to place her now free hand on the hilt of her katana. Words fell from his lips but she couldn't hear them. He gave the katana a shove, sparking spikes of pain though her, saying something else she still couldn't hear.

He gave it another shove, sending it driving deeper into her skin, in her muscles, deep into her very being. It needed to go all the way through her, she realized.

She wasn't sure if she could do it.

She felt week and the ache radiated through her chest. It stemmed like a vine, twisting around her internal organs and branching out to pulse and throb harder with every passing second. She realized she was panting, her breathing hitching every few seconds in a near strangle. Still, she had to try.

She tightened her grip the best she could and pulled down towards herself. The pressure was unbelievable. The sharp tip of her katana had already found its way down into her gut. She felt blood inside, welling up and filling her abdomen with internal bleeding, she could feel the coolness of the blade rapidly warming via her body heat and she could feel a cry of pain run through her and out her mouth. She was sure it'd sliced her stomach and her lungs, breathing was quickly becoming impossible. Her arms shook wildly, the lack of oxygen in her pounding blood stream was unable to power her movement. With one last fast, rigid movement, she pulled down once in a last hope attempt to finish the job.

Suddenly it breached her, erupting out of her back and splattering blood across the room. The screaming man at her feet was silenced, letting loose a death rattle that gave Hidan goose bumps. He was still, bleeding from a mirror wound inflicted to his chest, beginning above his sternum and existing under his rib cage.

Hidan's eyes flicked over the corpse and rolled him over using his foot. The stranger's eyes rolled back in his head and his mouth fell loose. Death had over taken him on a particularly strange angle. Hidan looked back at the woman, and she was in a completely different state.

Oh, Jashin, she could have moaned. An intense pleasure washed over her like an orgasm, radiating from her chest and drifting to every part of her body. Wave after wave of euphoria wrung the hurt from her body, gifting her the pleasant, joyful, elated bliss she'd longed for. She'd longed for this without knowing it, it felt so intoxicatingly good.

Her belly radiated butterflies, her mouth salivated, and she felt weightless, suspended in time. Her toes curled involuntarily as goosebumps rolled down her person. She shivered, her lips parted ever so slightly and her gaze distant.

Hidan knew what she was feeling. It was all too familiar. He couldn't just let her pass out from blood loss, he decided, and in one swift motion he yanked her katana from her chest. She really did moan that time, her mouth falling open and her pupils dilating wildly. He dropped the sword in favor of catching her as her knees finally gave out and she fell to the floor. He grunted, unsure what to do with her as the inky blankness faded from her skin.

"Sika?" He asked, juggling her to one arm so he could use the free one to turn her head towards him. She didn't respond. He narrowed his eyes.

He decided to drag her to the bed and threw her on it, her limbs uncoordinated moving haphazardly wherever they wished. She was too drunk to control them. Sighing, Hidan ran his hands through his hair. The pink glow of the room was giving him a head ache, and he was thirsty too, so his next decision was to leave the room momentarily, returning at ninja speed with a stolen bottle of pop and some pain killers.

Though this place was a little noisy with tons of nondescript thumping and the occasional loud moan, it was spacious and plush. He took his shoes off and found the light switch, cutting off the pink hues for the soft glow of a lamp near the bed. The carpet was expensive, so was the overly soft mattress, way too high rent for a brothel.

He took a swig of his soda and looked around, rifling through drawers until he found a pen and paper pad with the buildings name on it. It titled itself as a love hotel, not a whore house. Hidan wasn't entirely sure what the difference was.

Sika stirred and he glanced over at her from the empty side of the bed. She's trenches her legs, blinking slowly, her breathing normal again but her eyes still blown wide. He didn't like the way she was looking at him. A small smile crept on to her face, upturning the corners of her mouth and scrunching her eyes. She looked happy, that was all, but it still unnerved him. He had no idea why.

"Why do you look so disgusted?" Her voice came in a croak, deep and dry.

"Fuck if I know," he huffed, turning back to the drawer and the items inside.

"That felt awesome," Sika sighed dreamily, his bad attitude unable to phase her, "I can't even describe how that felt. Like my skin was on fire in an ice bath. It felt like chocolate tastes. Does it always feel like that?"

"Yeah. Every time. You get used to it," he replied, short.

"Oh, no, I hope I don't. That shits better than mushrooms. That might even be better than food." She sighed again, her smile creeping wider. That caught his attention.

"Mushrooms?" He asked, raising his eyebrows.

"Yeah, like, drugs?" She suggested, like it was really a question, " Their a hallucinogen. They're the best because you're so fucked up hours later, you can't even remember your name."

"Why would you want to feel like that?" Hidan blurted, without much thought and without a filter.

"I used to suck cock for a living, are you kidding me?" She snorted and giggled, which spilled into genuine laughter. She held her stomach, the endorphins letting loose all over again and she struggled to get herself under control.

"I used to have this guy," she started, hiccuping a little half giggle, "he came and saw me in the third of every month. He used to grow them and he'd share. It felt sort of like this but really different."

"That doesn't make sense," he pointed out, but she only shrugged, a horribly dumb look crossing her face.

"Come sit by me," she said after a long moment of silence. He was still looking down at the now empty drawer, still feeling a little anxious. He didn't want to tell her no though, that'd be mean. Hidan snorted, that thought struck him strange, why should he care if he was mean to her?

When he finally looked over, she had one hand extended to him in invitation.

He took a deep breathe before he climbed into bed with her, pushing her hand back to keep it to herself. She didn't seem to mind. He tried to stay sitting, but her hand fell on his shoulder and tugged and be let himself fall back on to the mattress, propped up against the headboard. He grabbed his drink off the side table and held it, sipping it leisurely and trying to act as if nothing as amiss.

Her hand drifted out and he eyed it. He'd already tried to keep her off of him, he didn't want her skin on his. He gripped her wrist just as her palm settled on his chest. His entire body tensed, stiffening like a board and his muscles tightening uncomfortably. He lifted her hand from his person as quickly as he could and tried to shove it back in her direction, but she resisted him.

"What are you doing?" He asked her with a certain twang of annoyance, raising the pop bottle to take another drink. It was almost panicking to think she might touch him. And then her words blurted from her still grinning mouth.

"I dunno."

She didn't pose a threat to him as long as they didn't touch, he decided. He let his body relax with a deep sigh and scowled at her though the low lighting. "You're a real pain in my ass."

* * *

"You know, one day, when I gain enough weight, I'm probably gonna be super curvy," Sika said after chewing a bit if her breakfast and swallowing.

"Why does that matter?" Hidan grunted around a mouthful of his own. Kakuzu looked to be ignoring her.

Sika shrugged, taking a sip of water, "I dunno. It's just what media shows me is pretty, and I wanna be pretty."

"Again, why?"

She shot him a dirty look. "Fuck you." She didn't care if it was superficial or culturally perverse, it wasn't shameful to be how she wanted to be no matter how stupid.

"Fuck you too!" He almost shouted back.

"Will you two shut up?" Kakuzu snapped suddenly, slamming his mug of coffee on to the table, "and keep your goddamn voices down!"

They sat in silence for another few moments, forks clinking on plates and avoiding attention despite the attention grabbing black clouded cloaks they wore. The men wore them, Sika was still wearing a bandeau and a pair of shorts. Still no shoes.

She had another shower though, and she'd washed her clothes and poured hydrogen peroxide on them to remove the blood. Hidan thought that was particularly smart, he hadn't known that bloodstains were removable, it could have saved him so many shirts.

"Where are we headed today?" Sika asked, looking up from her near finished food.

"An outpost near by. I'm going to pick up a new set of wanted posters," Kakuzu replied gruffly, handing her his untouched toast. She took it.

"Well, do you suppose I could stay here? I was supposed to uh, get something tattooed on me, I wanted to get that out of the way."

Kakuzu considered that. She'd need a babysitter, but he could kill two birds with one stone that way. "Hidan, don't let her out of your sight."

"Oh whatever! Like she'd run, seriously," the Jashinist complained, narrowing his eyes as his partner unloaded his plate on to their ward's and promptly left. He wasn't gone five minutes when Hidan realized kakuzu had stiffed him with the check.

There was a tattoo parlor in town, but it didn't open until noon. It wasn't hard to waste three hours though, and they were the first inside.

The tattoo artist wore combat boots and ripped jeans. He looked and spoke very western, in fact, Sika thought he might be half. He wasn't anything special in his plain T-shirt, but his art was something to behold. His arms were covered in ink, two sleeves that began at the wrist and went past his shoulders and ended somewhere under his shirt, probably twisting on to his chest and back. He had a number of old military tattoos from before his time and a poem printed on his forearm, Tigers and knives and vines wove together in a colored mess of artistic passion, and he claimed to have done everything below the elbow himself. Sika was confident in him.

"How can I hope you?" He grinned, coming around the counter to meet her as she entered.

"I need this," Sika informed him, pulling a mostly unwrinkled paper out of the Akatsuki folder in her bag. "It's a summoning contract, it has to be perfect."

"I can do that. Have you thought about where?" He asked, taking the page from her.

Actually she had. "I'd like it on my back, as big as you can make it."

"This will take a couple hours to do. Have you ever gotten a tattoo before? The larger they are, the harder they are to care for, and that area is sensitive," the artist reasoned. He didn't want to leave it half done if she petered out.

She grinned. "I can handle it, I'm a shinobi."

He nodded. It wasn't often his first customer was going to shell out that kind of money when they'd just opened, and he had a few hours to kill before his next appointment anyway.

The tattoo artist got on it, taking the paper back to a desk where he used a light table to trace the seal and transfer a much larger vision onto a sheet of transparent paper. He brought a towel back with him.

"If you'll follow me," he said, sweeping his arms to the side in a dramatic 'right this way' fashion, "and if you wouldn't mind, do you suppose you could remove your top?"

Sika, of course, didn't have any reservations about taking her top off. No sooner was she seated on the artist's padded bench at his workstation did she pull the thing completely off.

"Oh, uh, oh," the artist blushed, not expecting her to just strip like that, and snickering, Hidan thought the artist might get a nose bleed. He quickly handed her the towel, and she covered herself with it.

Hidan tried his best to be mature. He really didn't care to look but there was something about a woman's body that made him sort of uncomfortable. It wasn't like any of the priests at the temple ever gave him the birds and the bees speech. It wasn't a big deal, he wanted to act like it wasn't a big deal, but he was glad when she covered up.

"I'm uh, gonna put in the stencil, and I'd like you to uh, okay it," he spoke, his tone unsure and shaking. He was in a hurry to press the paper to her skin, and when he pulled it away, the summoning circle was penciled to her mid back. It would only be partially covered by her bandeau, but Sika wanted the artwork on display. It stretched in a perfectly circular shape from rib to rib, beginning about four inches under his neckline and ended at her mid back. The artist held up a mirror and handed her a second, letting her angle it herself until she got a good look.

It took her a while to decide if she liked it. Chewing her cheek, she debated asking him to remove it and put it on the back of her earlobe, as Itachi suggested. She was worried what people might say, especially her father, if she ever saw him again. In the end though, she decided that if her body was her own, she might as well be comfortable in it.

"It looks great," she said finally, "does it look alright to you, Hidan? The seal?" She asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Looks fine," he assured right away, thought he actually hadn't played too close attention. The artist picked up the original and compared them before he spoke again.

"Could I uh, get you to lay on your stomach then, miss? Or, or uh, I suppose you could stay sitting facing away from me, but I uh, I'd like to start," the artist stammered, fumbling with the gun and the ink.

"Is it easier if I lay down?" Sika asked, tucking the towel under her arms.

"Yes," the man answered, pulling on a pair of latex free gloves.

So she complied and Hidan took a seat in an uncomfortable chair nearby.

Sika jumped when the tip touched her skin, the buzzing tattoo gun in skillful hands. His every move was precise, his eyes calculating and his grip firm. He started in a place it wouldn't hurt too much, on her lower back, and she was relieved it didn't hurt. She could compare it to being pinched, and her skin tingled like it was asleep, but it wasn't a good or bad feeling.

The artist did a section at a time, doing the most he could in places it wouldn't hurt so much. It took him a half an hour to do two thirds of the lower portion, leaving a gap around the area of her spine. He was meticulous about it, taking careful swipes with a cool cloth to pull away the ink sitting unused on the surface of her reddening skin. He dabbed the pen into the ink time after time, always resuming where he'd left off until he could avoid going over her spine no longer.

"The parts where bone is closer to the skin hurts the worst. You haven't been bothered much until now, but it'll probably change. Maybe you, uh, wanna hold your boyfriend's hand?" The artist suggested, leaning back in his chair and taking a minutes rest.

"She's not my girlfriend," Hidan spat, readjusting himself on the hard ass chair. His mood had deteriorated over the course of the half hour, now his face looked sour. He hated waiting around.

"He means," Sika threw him a dirty look, "that we're just friends. And no, I think I'm okay."

The artist shrugged, dipped the tattoo gun back into the ink, and pressed it into the skin. She wasn't expecting the intense burn that ran straight up her spine. Her nerves screamed under the touch and she had to stop it immediately. Sika's eyes blew wide and she gasped, flinching hard. The artist raised his hand quickly so as not to mismark her flesh.

"It hurts," she cried, quickly sitting up to take away the workspace, "I can't uh, I'm religious, I can't experience pain without," she trailed off, unsure.

"I can't leave it half done," the tattoo artist countered.

"I wouldn't want you to," Sika sighed, clutching the towel closer to herself. She ran a hand through her hair, deep in thought. She had to finish this, but she couldn't just not share pain.

"I guess, I dunno, I guess I'll just have to bare it," she decided. There was no other way around it. The Akatsuki came before religion, Itachi made that clear.

Hidan rolled his eyes a silence fell between the artist and his artwork. He'd just sort of thrown himself in to the chair, his legs spread and his arms resting half on the counter nearby and half on the armrests, his head lolled to the side. "Here," he said, straightening himself and leaning over to reach for her.

There was no way he'd let her sin, he'd been trying to prevent it from the very beginning.

"You're way too cocky about this pain thing, you know that?" He huffed, furrowing his eyebrows to set an annoyed sort of look on his face.

"Tell me about it," she huffed back, grinning a little. She took his hand, and settled back down.

He didn't actually want to touch her. In fact, once her hand meet his he wanted to cut it off and throw it back at her, but he left his scythe in the corner of the room where he'd left it and let her keep her hand attached to her wrist. Her hand was warm, but he was sure his was getting cold and he was sure he was starting to sweat. Then the buzzing tattoo gun touched her again, she jumped and gasped again, but this time she tightened her grip on his hand and shut her eyes tightly, gritting her teeth.

"That doesn't hurt," he said very matter of factly, but seconds later he grunted when she dug her fingernails into his palm. That was better.

Well, sort of, he was still super uncomfortable.

* * *

Kakuzu sat on the hotel room's bed, sorting through new wanted posters and excel sheets of information and bounties. He'd been back for a few hours, and he was beginning to fear he'd have to go looking for his ward and partner. He'd wanted to move tonight, under the cover of darkness. He was about ready to fold everything up and start looking when the door opened and in walked the two people in question.

"Hey, you old bastard, we're back. Let's order some room service," Hidan was bitching before he was even fully in the room, "And you know what? I'll be damned if either of you two make me sleep in the chair or on the floor, or whatever the fuck again tonight. Seriously."

Kakuzu ignored him.

Sika came in second, her shoulders hunched and she looked sort of pained. He wondered what her problem was but he honestly didn't care.

"Hi, Kakuzu," she greeted, using her palm to wipe something he couldn't see off of her face. It was sweat, he noticed, as she came closer. "Wanna see?"

He grunted sort of noncommitmentally.

"I really like it, whoever designed this seal needs to be commended. It's a work of art," she said, turning around. Her entire back was red, inflamed and irritated, the skin around the ink raised and damaged. She was already beginning to scab with her accelerated healing. It must have been painful to put her sorry excuse of a shirt back on. It looked alright though, no mistakes he could see.

"That seal is hundreds of years old," he commented. She grinned at him over her shoulder. He didn't approve or disapprove of Sika's size and placement choice, neither of the men did, but she couldn't help think Kakuzu was being a little condescending about it.

"It hurts to uh, lean on stuff, like chairs, do you think we really could get room service?" She asked, innocently enough.

He glared at her from his work.

"Please?" She asked, flashing her teeth, "pretty please?"

"We're ordering cheaply," he growled. Room service did sound nice actually.

"As usual," Hidan scoffed from his spot where he glowered out a window. "Anything interesting happen old man?"

"Actually," he replied as Sika lay down on the other side of the bed. She lay on her stomach, her head proper up on her elbows, facing the footboard and her legs folded behind her. He pulled a spread sheet from the bottom of one of his piles.

"Do you know this person, Sika?" He passed her the sheet. She sat up and look at look at it.

On the paper was a photo of a man she'd never seen before. The picture was in black and white, so she couldn't see his hair or eye color, but he had a narrow jaw and high eyebrows. He was older, about her father's age and had her last name attached to his.

"No, I've never seen him before. Is there another Otori family?" She asked. Kakuzu didn't move.

She turned back to the sheet, and read allowed.

"Isao Takano-Otori. From the island of peaches. Aliases include The Land Dealer, The Green Murderer, And The Mist's Bloody Blade. That last one, this guy isn't even from the mist." Sika turned the page over, scanning it for more information but she found none. She handed the paper back to him.

"A bounty was placed on this man's head by a rival political group. I guess he's grabbing up land on the edge of a country in the far north, but he himself lives on an island in the Gold sea. I wouldn't have even bothered if I hadn't seen your last name attached, the bounty is pitiful," Kakuzu scoffed, folding the paper and tucking it into his Akatsuki cloak.

"Are we going there?" Sika asked, leaning over, her eyes as wide as dinner plates.

Kakuzu's face remained covered and his expression could not be read, but he answered evenly. "Yes."

"Would you two quit yammering!" Hidan shouted, "I'm hungry!"

This time Kakuzu's eyes narrowed, "I'll kill him one of these days."

"Not today though, okay?" Sika grinned, "I'm hungry too."

* * *

Your title is a reference an awesome fic on a03, called Neophyte, by Fivetail. "It means a person newly converted to a belief" says the dictionary.

If you've got some free time, go check it out. If you like this story, you should go check out my other fic, Dancing in the Dark, which is ended, but its gonna be getting some drabbles in a new folder just for drabbles.

Stay tuned everybody! And please review! I want your words!


	6. Chapter 6: Agnation

Chapter 6: Agnation

* * *

After a week spent tracking through the backwater, worthless lands of Rice, Iron, and Waterfall, the immortal trio passed a checkpoint in to the land of Earth, on the north western border near the sea. Alright, so they didn't really pass it, they more like went up and over, using the cover of night to walk up the wall, back down, and disappear into the nearby forest before anyone noticed.

Sika wasn't exactly sure how the men were seeing anything. The path through the forest was not at all lit, and Sika found it difficult to see the branches beneath her feet as they used the trees as a highway. She could make out Hidan up ahead and sometimes she saw Kakuzu's cloak flutter in the breeze. She had no other indicators she was going the right way besides the sparse reoccurrence of two shadows. Sika could see an end coming to the tree line when the silhouettes of the men fell from the path of branches and on to the forest floor. As she emerged, a minuscule amount of light the moon beams provided helped focus her vision just enough to see about two feet in front of her face.

Kakuzu bounced once off of the ground, his heavy chakra summoned, and dirt and gravel flew, spraying away from the intruding energy, and he jumped, off into the darkness ahead of him. Hidan mocked him, fine dust flying and clouding the air as his much lighter feeling energy crowed his feet, and he sprung forward in the same way. She felt their chakra disturb the air around them, and thinking this couldn't be good, Sika summoned her own chakra.

When she sprung, following blindly in the footsteps of her protégés, she thought maybe she was going to land on a low branch where she'd vault up into another tree. At least, she suspected she was going to jump a log or a rock, but that was much to simple.

Much too simple, Sika decided, biting her lip.

Because as soon as her foot left the safety of the earth, she was falling. She'd followed her traveling partners off of a cliff.

"You assholes have got to be fucking kidding me!" Sika screeched, falling into the inky blackness of the ground below. She couldn't see anything, not even the boys, not even her nose in front of her face.

And then she heard a splash down below and she realized the sound if the waves crashing, the sound they'd been wandering with for hours, was getting closer. She hurriedly summoned chakra to her feet once more and tried to tell herself she'd be safe. There wasn't any use being afraid because she had to skills to save herself.

Her splash was much louder. She felt her feet come into contact with the water and she felt it part, she sunk, up to her calves, and the resulting splash covered about three feet. Her chakra repelled her back to the water's surface and though it was a bit more difficult than walking on stagnant water, she stood on top of the mighty ocean, blind, but dry. Dry and not injured.

Sika didn't like how she was so much clumsier than the other two ninja she traveled with. She didn't like how she tripped when she stopped focusing or skidded when she should have landed flat. She shouldn't have had any trouble landing and staying on top of the water. She especially didn't like how slow she was. Everybody that'd ever give her trouble was faster than her. The list was short, but the reason still stood.

"Do you think you fucks could give me some goddamn warning next time we, I dunno, plummet down the side of a son of a bitching cliff?" She was screaming, but she couldn't exactly see in which direction. She hoped it was in the general direction of her traveling partners.

"Would you shut the fuck up? Holy shit, you're so goddamn loud!" Hidan was closer than she thought he was.

"As if you aren't?" She accused, scoffing.

"Both of you shut up," Kakuzu growled, a little farther away than she pegged him to be. "You don't have any room to scold her," the oldest of the group chastised the Jashinist. Hidan would probably be looking pretty pissed right about now, but Sika couldn't see him.

"Sooo, okay, now what?" Sika asked, shifting her weight. Her sword shifted with her.

"We walk," Kakuzu said gruffly.

"How do we know we're going the right way?"' Sika retorted.

"We," Kakuzu said sharply, "are going north west. The moon, as I'm sure you know, rises in the east. It's past midnight, the moon is arching down, that way," he said, sort of dramatically, and she was sure he was motioning, "is west. We're going to follow the coast in that direction, and it will take us north west. That's the natural scope of this country's coast, it runs at an arch north."

"You don't have to talk to me like I'm stupid," Sika grumbled. Rolling her eyes, not that anyone one could see it. But really? Why couldn't she have seen that? She rubbed her arm self consciously and sighed, putting one foot blindly in front of the other. Kakuzu didn't respond, and the only sound for hours was the soft "pat, pat" of their feet on the water.

Five hours of walking on water was strenuous. Sika did not have deep chakra reserves, and using it for long periods was taxing. She felt the heavy pull on her as it drained, pulling her shoulders to her stomach where her chakra coiled and withered under demand. Sika bit her lip. She didn't want to say anything. Kakuzu already had a low opinion of her.

She thought for a moment longer. It was near six in the morning, the sun's rays were crowning the horizon. As the sky pinkened and yellowed into gold with the rising sun, the washed out colors that made up her companions became clearer and clearer, their outlines giving way to pastel colored bodies. They'd been traveling all night. Maybe they could sleep during the day. Probably not, but it was worth a try.

"Do… Do you guys suppose that we could take a break?"

"No," Kakuzu said bluntly.

"Alright, well who's gonna carry me when I pass out?" She retorted. It earned her a hard glare.

"Here," Hidan grunted, digging a baggie of something out from his weapons pouch beneath his cloak. "Eat one. They're energy pills."

"Soldier pills," Kakuzu corrected.

So Sika took one, and ate it, and it only took a few seconds for her body to convert it straight to energy. She don't care how, but honestly this is the best she's felt since, since, well, she wasn't sure when. Best of all, she wasn't hungry. She'd been hungry for so long.

"Can I take more?" She asked, stepping closer to Hidan so they walk abreast.

"Yeah, I guess. Your gonna pass out later though," he says, and she ignored him, grabbing three more pills and munching on them. Her throat contracted as she swallowed, and the pills hit her stomach.

Passing out was worth this feeling. It was like an immediate sugar high. A shit eating grin plastered itself on her face.

"Hey, what do you call somebody who points out the obvious?" She asked, sort of sly.

"What?" Hidan asked, taking the bait after realizing she was trying to tell a joke.

"Somebody who points out the obvious," she replied, amused. Hidan eyed her. That was so bad it wasn't even funny.

"What do you call a cow with no legs?" She followed up. He narrowed his gaze.

"Ground beef," she answered herself. She was getting a rise out of this. Hidan tried to ignore her. She kept on.

"What's brown and sticky?"

"Oh my god, Sika!" Hidan shouted, she ignored him.

She sneered, "A stick."

Hidan face palmed and groaned "oh come on!" Sending the girl into a fit of giggles. They were horrible jokes, really horrible, but his reaction was the funniest part of it. Kakuzu was downright ignoring both of them. The banker lived in a state of almost constant annoyance with them around anyway.

"Okay, okay, I'm done," she snickered, waving him off.

"But hey, Kakuzu, you know, I've been reading," Her voice was just a little bit hesitant. Just an itsy bit hesitant, like a bull in a china shop. She didn't usually address him directly like that, usually she beat around the bush, politely, because she was afraid of him. "I've been reading your bingo book. I read your entry. You have a lightning style jutsu?"

Sika had never seen him in combat. She'd never seen the Lightning mask emerge from his body in an eldritch form of tangled threads, and spit lightning from its mouth. He could lie to her. It'd be easier to lie to her.

"I have several," he informed her.

"I want them all," she grinned, looking just a bit wicked. He didn't look back at her.

"One does not receive skill from pure want," he said, very condescendingly. She ignored his tone.

"Your right. They receive it from their traveling partners." This time he did look back.

"You have a loud mouth," the older man remarked with contempt. Sika didn't waver.

"Go back to Kisame," Kakuzu instructed, "he's your teacher. Not me."

"You keep acting like I'm so useless, teach me something. You know, I really don't see Kisame around here. Apparently what I learned from him wasn't enough anyway," She challenged.

"Apparently." He growled.

* * *

Thinking about arriving at the port city where they'd catch a boat to their island destination was different than actually arriving there. Hidan supposed it would be quiet there, it was only a small village, no large ships, but he was wrong. The village was actually quite large, with its own market and seafood cannery. The ships weren't huge, but they also were nothing to shake a stick at. It was quiet though, and he brought trouble with him.

Sika had been awake for close to two days, the effects of the soldier pills were pulling on her physique, but not her energy. She repeatedly told her traveling partners she wasn't tired, and that she wasn't hungry, but she then scarfed down any food put in front of her, so she may or may not have been lying about being tired. Hidan wasn't really sure, he just wanted her to stop pestering him. He didn't remember the first time he took soldier pills, but he hoped he wasn't as obnoxious as she was.

Sure, she was usually brazen and transparent, but she was downright annoying with all that energy.

Hidan had imagined the girl calm and contemplative, the man they pursued might know something about her father, but instead she seemed uninterested and unfocused.

He decided, deep down, she was hiding her fears under the sugar rush. She twitched a little too often for it to just be the pills.

Hidan watched Sika from afar, the kunoichi was standing at the end of the dock, ducked down looking at something he wasn't sure belonged in the ocean when Kakuzu approached him. The banker had just finished securing their passage to the island with blackmail and death threats, just like always. They stood together, watching her for just a moment before Hidan spoke. "You know, I tried to make a decent sacrifice out of her and it came back and bit me in the ass."

"Next time make sure it doesn't come back to bite me in the ass too," the older man sneered. "She'll pass out on the boat."

Hidan clicked his tongue. He sure hoped she would.

* * *

Sika did pass out on the boat. No sooner had she got on did she lose consciousness in the middle of a sentence, mid blink. The bottle of water she was holding clattered to the floor as she slumped over and her limbs went limp. She was standing in the middle of the main deck, the small ship's five man crew buzzing around and darting every which way, nearly tripping on her as she fell. Hidan caught her before her head hit the ground.

Kakuzu threw him an Interested glance.

" 'ey! Take her below deck, would ya?" the second in command (the first mate?) shouted, throwing a rope to another man and they both heaved ho to pull the anchor from the sandbar they were docked on. He understood, couldn't have a half dead body laying around, complicating things and tripping people. Hidan liked these guys, they didn't ask a lot of questions, like why she'd just fell unconscious.

"Go, Hidan," Kakuzu commanded, sharing a wrinkled map with the captain nearby. After some intense bickering, he lugged her body carelessly down two flights of stairs, grumbling all the way. Seriously, since when was she his problem?

The third level of the ship was below the canon deck, and was made up mostly of the galley, dining room, and bunk rooms. Hidan had very little knowledge of ships. He didn't know that all the compartmentalizing of rooms was to help protect against flooding in case of injury to the haul, to him it was mostly just annoying. Having to haul a body though so many doors just to get to the god damn dining room was stupid.

He put her down next to a stack of potatoes laying against a wall and pulled out a chair. He seated himself at the long crew table and rested his arms on the top. Kakuzu thought they'd be at sea, tops, maybe four hours. They were headed to another port town, from there they'd just catch a ferry over to the Island of Spring, where that Isao guy was hiding out or whatever. He wondered if Sika would wake up before then.

It'd be kind if awkward, towing her in there passed the fuck out and asking the guy, "hey, are you related to this prostitute or nah?" Besides, she'd be tolerable to talk to again when she woke up.

If he was going to be real with himself, which he probably wasn't because he didn't really want to think in that direction, he was going to be kinda bummed when this was all over.

Kakuzu joined him a half hour later and they sat in silence for the remainder of the trip.

* * *

When Sika woke up, the uneasy feeling of dread was still in her guts. She was again in a place she didn't recognize, but the familiar arguing of her traveling partners set her at ease.

"Look, all I'm saying is that your sinning, and two out of three of us don't want to be around it."

Kakuzu scoffed, "I don't remember this being a democracy."

She was sick to her stomach. It rolled over and over in an uncomfortable ache fueled by emotion. Her chest hurt too, and she was nauseous. She was so fucking sick, she couldn't remember being this sick in so long.

Sika rolled over, squeezing her eyes shut once more and feeling around for the off chance of another pillow next to her to cover her head to silence the voices. Her hand hit the cold wooden floor outside of her bedroll with a definite smack and she groaned. Nothing.

"Hey, get up off your lazy ass, fucking idiot," Hidan projected from across the room.

"But I don't feel good," she complained.

"Get up," Kakuzu droned in that calming, deep voice of his. Sika refused, choosing to lay still and listen to her surroundings. She could hear the constant "pat pat pat" of rain though an open window nearby, in fact, she thought she might be under it. That was strange, it had been so clear when they boarded the boat. Sika thought maybe it might be because of a jet stream or something meteorological she didn't fully understand.

"You've been out for two days. Your setting us back, get up," Kakuzu demanded.

Sika groaned again.

She debated not getting up. What was the worst he could do, honestly?

Actually, you know what? She was gonna get up now.

"Are you gonna teach me that lightning jutsu?" She asked, sitting up to run her fingers through her matted mass of hair.

"Are you honestly still on that?" The banker asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

"A broken clock is still right twice a day, right?" She asked, countering his statement. He didn't respond.

She was surprised to see that they weren't on the boat anymore, but the stillness of her body should have keyed her into that. The hotel room was very traditional. It didn't even have a bed, just three bedrolls laid out on the floor, not yet folded and packed away for the day. The floor was wood, and comparing the traditional screens to the floor was strange, they didn't match. The floor was very dark, but the screens were bordered by light wood, pine maybe, like they were trying to cut costs last minute. The space was big though, big enough for two skinny, horizontal windows to border the north side and a tea table to the west and an armoire pushed up against the wall.

Hidan and Kakuzu sat at the table, morning tea brought to the room for the three of them to share. Hidan had his legs sprawled out like a four year old, his elbow on the table and a sour look on his face, contrasting Kakuzu who sat cross legged, holding his cup if tea off the table.

Sika got up, throwing the covers off if her and moved to the table, folding her legs under in a very lady like manner, and pouring herself a cup of tea.

"I need somebody to help me bind my chest, if you don't mind," she spoke, taking a quick sip of the hot liquid, "I'd rather not go around possible family with my tits hanging out. This shirts trashed anyway."

"Hidan," Kakuzu volunteered. The immortal spat out his tea.

"What the fuck!" Hidan shouted, spraying the other two at the table with liquid, "I fucking carried her ass here! I baby-fuckin'-sat her! It's your turn!"

Sika cocked an eyebrow. What? Like she was heavy?

"Okay, okay," she huffed, "can I just borrow a shirt? God, you two are like pulling teeth."

"Yeah, whatever," Hidan snarled, leaning back away from the table. He was pissed.

"I really do want to learn that jutsu," Sika pressed, changing the subject.

Before the Akatsuki Organization treasurer had a chance to refuse her, Sika literally up and vanished. In a cloud of white smoke she was just gone. That was a mistake. Kakuzu swore. Whoever was responsible for this was going to be in a shit load of trouble.

Sika wasn't gone gone, she was just, for lack of a better word, moved. She was halfway across the continent in another time zone, one where the sun hadn't risen, sitting on the ground.

There was another pair of Akatsuki where Hidan and Kakuzu had been sitting. When she looked up, following the white stockings and dark shrouds up, she meet the faces of Sasori and Deidara.

"Oh shit, we got the noob, yeah," Deidara rolled his eyes. Sasori looked unphased.

You know, something certainly smelled it it was burning.

Sika looked behind her, turning her torso with her. There was a large building behind her, on fire.

Huh. Well would you look at that.

Sika chewed her cheek, turning back to the two half pints in front of her. She stood up, and had to look down. "So uh, 'sup?"

"Put the fire out," Sasori droned, looking at her void of emotion. She shrugged. Sure, okay.

Sika spun around, already weaving hand signs, and pulled her chakra from the depths of her system where it dwelled after a two day recharge. The shark water bullet sprung from her lips, flung through the air like it was shot out of a canon, and extinguished the rightmost part of the Flames with a tell tale hiss. Three more water bullets reduced the flames to nothing more than smoking ashes. The building's skeleton and what was left of the exterior and interior stuck out as blackened charcoal bits contrasting against the graying grass as the horizon began to lighten.

Sika stood away from the artistic pair, having moved to angle her jutsu to utilize it best, hands on her hips and admiring her work. She beamed. This was a very worthy mission for her, she'd been very useful to her co-workers. The smoke might have tipped off the enemy, or the fire might have sent the forest up, she'd helped out majorly in all actuality.

"We've got one other task for you, yeah," the slightly taller, blond Akatsuki member smirked, "you do those sacrifice rituals too, don't you?"

"Who's asking?" Sika replied, turning to walk towards him, folding her hands behind her head.

Deidara leered at her with his visible eye and grinned, leaning back to relax. He didn't look like he wanted to tell her, but Sasori wasn't moving either. Finally he spoke. "We got a guy that knows something, and Sasori's done everything short of murder him and he won't talk. We want you to kill his partner, yeah."

"In the most gruesome way I can?" She retorted, cocking an eyebrow.

"That'd be helpful."

Sika scoffed, shrugging, "I'll see what I can do."

* * *

Sika arched her back off the blood stained dirt, gasping as her toes curled and she repossessed her own lifeless body. The hurt was so worth it. It was worth it every time she cleaved open her chest. Moaning out loud, her fingers dug into the dirt in a desperate search of something to hang on to.

She hadn't thought she'd been able to do it, sacrifice one man and then another, but when the guy they grilled finally spoke up, well, it was a sin to leave someone half dead anyway.

"You gonna lay like that all morning, yeah?" Deidara smirked, "it's a pretty compromising position."

"Fuck off," Sika panted, her eyes heavy, "it's a dirty shame you're never gonna feel this."

"Wouldn't want to," the blond scoffed.

Sika tried to ignore him, and she didn't have to try very hard. Everything felt so good.

"How do we get rid of her, Danna?" Deidara asked, turning around to face the redhead who was in the process of working on a nameless, faceless puppet. He'd been working on it nearly the entire time Sika had been working on those men.

"I'll dismiss her in a moment," Sasori droned.

"Danna," Deidara said, just about to whine.

"In a moment, Deidara," the red head's tone was much more menacing that time. Deidara huffed.

"My two aren't any better if it's any consolation," Sika offered, her muscles starting to relax.

"They fight like a married couple," Deidara snickered, "but I'd rather have Hidan than Mr. Professional Wet Blanket here, though."

"And just why is that?" Sasori asked, his tone hinting he was mocking the younger man. "He stands for everything you're against."

"Because he's more fun, yeah!" The blonde shot back, seating himself in the dirt between the two. Sasori tisked loudly.

Sika flexed her fingers, then her toes, then rolled her ankles around, and finally deeming herself able, she sat up. "What's that mean?"

"What's what mean?" Deidara asked, cocking an eyebrow as the girl scooted closer.

"Hidan stands for everything you're against. What, you don't like religion?" Sika asked, ending up about five feet from him. She remembered the last time they'd meet.

"No, immortality," the blond replied bluntly, "you, Hidan, Kakuzu, hell, even my own partner. All of you, too blind to see the beauty of a short lived, poetic life. It's what life is supposed to be you know? The ideas artistic."

"He thinks he should die," Sasori remarked, snide.

Sika raised her eyebrows.

"I do!" The blond rushed to defend himself, but immediately calmed and rolled his eyes upon realizing his partner was out to get his goat. "I think everyone should."

"Alright, what do you think about suicide then?" The tawny haired girl asked, running a hand through her once clean hair.

"Suicide? It's stupid. All of it. Your kind, the real kind, all of it. People are meant to live short lives, yeah, but it defeats the purpose if you end it yourself. Shouldn't make it too short now," he smirked.

Sika shrugged and drug her fingers into the grass, feeling every inch of the stems and the plush, collective softness. She honestly didn't care much about his opinion, she was just trying to make small talk. "What if you accidentally killed yourself, that time, back at that meeting house?"

Deidara scoffed. "I wouldn't do that. My bombs are precise. They don't reshape the landscape, they don't make a show out of it, they get their jobs done. The explosion shouldn't be too long, or too big that remnants remain, got me, yeah?"

"Yeah," Sika agreed. She'd decided about two minutes ago this guy was a loon, even if it was only the second time she'd meet him.

"You know, there's something I don't get," the blonde began, and Sika knew he was going to start picking her brain. "You scream bloody murder and die, and it delights you, I don't understand."

"You know," Sika mused, trailing off a moment to think, "I don't either, but-" she paused again, "it's really difficult to describe. But when it's over, and it starts to feel good, so good it's like I can literally reach out and touch my faith. Like I can hold it in my hands."

"How much scripture did you have to read to get that?" The bomber snickered.

"None."

His smirk fell from his face.

"I read one book on lesser sins, but it was more of a bound essay, er, a list. Every nerve in my body feels like I'm being touched by God," she continued. He didn't care, she knew that, but it was conversation.

"What's that feel like, yeah? Being touched by God? How do you know it's Him?" The man followed up.

"You're an atheist, I bet?" She asked, he nodded, "I used to be too. I know, now, if nothing else, Lord Jashin exists. I know it's him because it's the first thing I feel after death. You know, heaven?"

Deidara's laugh burst from his throat. He threw back his head and his chest rumbled deeply. He was laughing at her faith in her face. Sika shrugged again.

He was a godless heathen, what else did she expect?

Okay, whoa, now she was starting to sound like Hidan.

"You sound like Hidan," the blond bomber smirked, letting his last few whole hearted chuckles out, "oh, man, all you immortals got a shtick don't you?"

"I wouldn't know," Sika huffed. This loony moron was getting on her nerves now. He was sort of an asshole actually.

"Hey, Sasori, you tell her about you yet?" Deidara asked over his shoulder. Sasori ignored him.

"Come on Danna, tell her," He urged again.

"He told me he was a puppet," Sika offered.

"Nah, he's got a whole thing," Deidara brushed her off, "come on Danna, tell her!"

"I will if you'll shut up," Sasori hissed. He didn't look up from his work.

"Sure," Deidara rolled his eyes.

Sasori tinkered a bit longer on a broken arm piece and used his chakra to flex the puppet's fingers before he spoke. "You know, I don't make a point to get into deep philosophical discussions with people I've meet twice."

Sika shrugged. She was a pretty open person to begin with, not exactly friendly, but she never got anywhere being closed off. Deidara certainly didn't seem shy. "You don't have to share if you don't want."

The redhead sighed and picked up the arm, slung it over his shoulder and picked up his screw driver. He came closer, the lazy gaze he held unwavering. He finally settled down next to them, on a fallen log that was still a few feet away. He sat farther away from Deidara than she did.

"I want to live as long as I can, but even I am not so stupid as to think I'll be alive forever," he spoke evenly, "I believe a life as long as you can make it is best. Think about people who die young. Surely coming from 'The Bloody Mist' you understand."

Sika nodded. She thought immediately to her mother. She had been dead since Sika was thirteen.

"I believe that a person should live to the best if their ability, and that includes leaving a legacy for others," the red head's face remained empty, "because the memory of a person will outlast any body, even this artificial one. Immortality means a longer legacy."

"I like that," the tawny haired girl replied, "I like that a lot."

"Oh come on," Deidara moaned, "that's horrible, yeah! I can't believe you!"

"Hey man," she defended," if I disagree with stuff that supports my own existence, you know, immortality? It creates cognitive dissonance."

"Literally, what the fuck is that?" He asked with a straight face. She rolled her eyes.

Without another word, Sasori made a hand motion and dismissed her. Sika disappeared in a puff of smoke, put back where she'd come from.

"You know, you could have dismissed her any time too," the redhead pointed out.

"Fuck off, yeah."

* * *

"You lousy, goddamn stupid bitch!"

"I'm glad I'm back too, Hidan," Sika huffed, sitting up from her uncomfortable position on the floor. Somehow she'd ended up on her upper back, upside down, with her legs twisted over her shoulders and her hips angled uncomfortably in to line with her head. She'd apparently been deposited back into her original spot at the table.

"Who summoned you?" Two large hands seized her from her spot, bringing her within inches of the accountant's masked, scowling face.

"Sasori and Deidara," she replied, trying to seem unphased. On the inside she was screaming. He dropped her back on her ass and stormed out if the room in search of a phone.

"Somebody just might lose a limb over that," Hidan scowled too, taking a big gulp of his tea.

Sika poured herself some new, seeing as hers had gotten cold. "How long was I gone?"

"About an hour," the Jashinist replied, holding out his cup for more. Sika served him with whatever tea serving manners she still remembered.

"What are you so pissed over?" She asked, looking up at him.

He didn't meet her graze. "Nothin'."

"Not jealous, are you?" Sika smirked.

"Absolutely fucking not!" The silver haired man shouted, spitting a little in the haste of his speech. Sika snickered.

"You! Bitch!" The door flew open, well, more like shattered on impact, the outer edge crumbling under Kakuzu's grip as he reentered the room, "go take a fucking shower! We're leaving in five minutes with or without you!"

Sika fled for the bathroom like the coward she was. Kakuzu was mad and she did not want to feel his wrath. Besides, she was, you know, smeared with rust colored blood.

* * *

The only problem with Hidan's shirt was that Sika couldn't get the smell of his hair gel out of her nose. They were relatively the same size so it fit alright, but the collar of the garb smelled like 'Phoenix' or whatever sent his gel claimed to be, despite the man claiming he'd washed it. Sika tied the bottom of the black fabric at the bottom, taking up any extra slack in the shirt as she walked after her traveling partners. The town was mid sized, but especially busy this Saturday, with people bustling up and down finely groomed brick streets.

The road to the port was long and hilly, but it was a straight shot. Even though Sika couldn't see the water, she could see big white ship sails in the distance and seagulls cried overhead. It was only supposed to be a ten minute walk, and they'd already been walking for five. The street was easy. People stayed out of each other's way.

Crossing the village square was like crossing a threshold. On the way to the water they passed though, and as soon as they exited the space, political propaganda covered every free space. Springing up like weeds in the garden patch. The group came around a tree obstructing their view and there it all was. Shop windows let themselves be covered in paper, painted a dark blue with the words "death to Isao" and like slogans in bright white letters. As they continued down Main Street, posters became more and more abundant, taped and stapled to every available place.

"What's this all about?" Sika asked, furrowing her eyebrows.

Kakuzu ignored her, still angry about that morning's delay, and Hidan seemed to be lost with his thoughts, so she grabbed one taped to a lamp post as she walked by.

"Wanted Dead, Isao Takano-Otori," she read allowed. She turned the page over and then turned it back, looking over a much more detailed picture of the Isao fellow. This was pretty much a better version of the wanted poster Kakuzu had. Sika pocketed it.

"These people really hate that guy," Sika said, loudly, hoping to attract some attention.

She failed, the men continued ignoring her.

They reached the docks not long after. Kakuzu set off to look for their ride and Hidan parked himself on top of a crate in an unloading area, where like crates were being shoved off of a ship. The pair of Jashinists didn't speak, but both focused their eyes on their unofficial leader.

Kakuzu stood near a group of sea captains, grizzled, worn out old men who wore trashed clothing and each used a different form of tobacco product. He towered over several of them, but one man smoking a pipe was near his height.

They were out of earshot but it was plain to see by their body language that they weren't having any of this newcomers bullshit.

The man with the pipe puffed out his chest and began talking with his hands, trying to make himself look bigger, more authoritative, while Kakuzu's shoulders tensed, like his hackles were raised.

The argument continued a few moments longer and then Kakuzu shouted "Well fuck you too buddy!" And he tore away from them, stomping back towards his partner and their ward.

"Come the fuck on," he snarled, and lead the way back up the dock, towards the mainland. Sika didn't dare not follow him, and Hidan brought up the back, his hands shoved in his pocket.

"Kakuzu, what happened?" Sika asked, from far enough away she was out of his immediate striking range.

"I don't know what this fucker did," he snarled, "but not one of those jerk-asses will set foot in a boat headed in that island's general fucking direction."

"What?" Sika asked, jogging altitude to catch up to him.

"He's seriously pissed these people off," Kakuzu spat, and the group stepped off of the wooden dock and on to the brick port. They followed Kakuzu around a stack of crates and barrels and on to an alternate dock.

The trio had better luck on the next dock. There was a man on a dingy that was delivering supplies to the island, they meet him by chance just before he shoved off, and bought their passage across fairly cheaply.

* * *

Docking the boat was sort of a chore. The man fumbled and dropped the room in the drink twice before he finally tied it off to a post on the dock and let the trio off on grounds they each carry something off the boat on to the dock.

Hidan not so politely told him to go fuck himself.

The town on the island is filled with very old but well kept up buildings. Every shop here is mom and pop, and there's nothing extra about it. There's no store that isn't an absolute necessity and no item is carried that doesn't sell. The people are friendly. It's an old farming village after all, they don't get many visitors.

Sika notices that the majority of the people in town are women and older people. The theme continues after Kakuzu asks for directions and they have to walk down though a rice patty. The absence of men like that is usually connected with war, or with a dictator, and Sika hasn't heard about any wars. If her traveling partners notice at all it doesn't show.

The home of Isao Takano-Otori is a fortress. It has high walls made of stone and the roof tiles are new, a navy blue that hasn't begun to fade. There are no guards, just one large, brass knocker in which to beat on the gate.

"I'll handle this," Hidan said, too confident in his own skills. It wasn't that difficult to knock on a door.

"Try not to strain anything," Sika huffed, smirking as he threw her a dirty look.

Hidan drew the knocker in his hands and smacked it, as hard as he could without using any of his superhuman ninja strength. The noise echoed on the wood, and Hidan took a step back after three loud rasps.

They waited, but no one ever answered.

"What the fuck?" Hidan shouted. Sika hoped the people on the other side heard him.

Kakuzu sighed and took the door knocker himself, shoving Hidan out if the way.

"Excuse the fuck out of you!" The Jashinist protested.

"Be quiet," Kakuzu commanded, but it fell on deaf ears.

Hidan scoffed. "You wish!"

"I wish you'd shut up you incompetent whelp."

"You stupid bastard! There's nothing wrong with the way I did it!"

Sika groaned and turned away from the pair to look out over the landscape. This area was sort of hilly, and trees grew high here, as opposed to the scraggly ones near the coast. They could be more than half a kilometer from the sea. The island wasn't even half a kilometer long.

Sika didn't turn around when the gate clicked behind her and the hinges screeched open.

"Could I help you?" A man's soft voice asked.

"We're looking for Isao Takano-Otori," Kakuzu's gruff voice replied.

"And what is your business with him?" The voice countered. He sounded guarded. Sika wondered if he had a weapon hidden on him. For his sake she hoped so.

On second thought a weapon might not do him any good.

She wondered, still looking at the foliage, if hanging was an acceptable way to sacrifice oneself. She was so bored she'd take it. She was beginning to doubt anyone on this waste of space island could help them at all.

"We're looking for information," Hidan's voice replied, "we think he knows this girl, and vice versa."

The stranger considered it for a moment in silence. The group counted on this guy's pity. Even with her back turned, she didn't look healthy, just a wreck of muscle and skin thrown together without any base. It counted in her favor she was traveling with two shady men.

"I'll get him. Wait here," the man said, still quite guarded and she heard his footsteps leaving.

It was then she choose to turn around. She wanted to get a look at him. That voice was sounding more and more familiar. His back was already to her, but she'd know the back of that dirty blonde head anywhere.

Her mouth fell open.

"Hey, clam up before you attract flies," Hidan taunted, "he says he's going to get our guy."

"We don't need him anymore," Sika stated plainly. Kakuzu narrowed his eyes.

"Whys that?" The Jashinist questioned.

"Because that's my father."

* * *

There's nothing significant about her passing out, or taking the pills, by the way. I just thought for realism's sake that she was using too much chakra for a shinobi with seven or so weeks of training. Also, comic relief. She passed out 'cause the (mostly reliable) wikia entry for soldier pills said they keep you up for three days but then you pass out from exhaustion.

For the record, Deidara, who has a 5/5 intelligence score, knew he could dismiss Sika any time. He choose to let Sasori do it.

I never wrote this with no need for the reader to have to have seen the Road to the Ninja movie to read this, I think I explain things pretty well enough, but below I have some observations.

Writing this chapter was a little difficult, because this is the road to the ninja universe. A lot of the characters are complete opposites, but some of them just have little personality tweaks.

Take for example, Shikamaru, who turned into a total idiot, and Minato, who just changed values but his personality remained the same.

In this story, I.e., Hidan not murdering Sika and instead choosing to convert to to Jashinism, or Deidara and his reverse relationship with his clay and high worth for his life and Sasori with the opinion he has on eternalism. In canon he didn't accept his legacy would live on until he was Edo Tensied, but here he's already accepted it, and actively strives for it.

Also, Sika knew Deidara was an atheist because the main religion in Japan, where the Naruto universe is based, for lack of a better term, is a mix of Shinto and Buddhism. Neither of those religions worship a god.

Today's chapter name means Kinship


	7. Chapter 7: Affranchise

Chapter 7: Affranchise

* * *

Warning: chapter contains drug use

* * *

Sandwiched between two S-class nukenins, Sika sat, legs folded under her at a low tea table. They sat in a big, empty parlor room with only this table on the spotless tatami. Tea had been served but she wasn't drinking it.

Across from her sat her father, his hands balled into tight fists as they rested on his knees. He sat in a similar fashion, also not drinking his steaming tea. His face was stony, his long, dirty blond hair had been tied back with a ponytail. It made his features look harder somehow.

The room was bright. It was missing an entire wall to the east, and the porch overhang and bug netting protected it from the elements. The intended reasoning was to able the person inside to watch the sunrise, but it was mid-day and now this room's purpose was to hold conference away from the rest of the household.

Outside, a fully landscaped garden with a deer scare clacking in the distance and a gentle breeze blowing through the flowering bushes. Hidan couldn't help but think he'd rather be out there than in here.

"Let me get this straight," Sika spoke with hostility.

"You're here playing feudal lord when I've been spending seven years in a whore house?" She asked, but it was hardly a question. "I've been raped, repeatedly, beat, gaged, choked, held down, tied up, you name it, it fucking happened. Are you fucking kidding me? I could make you a three page list of shit I was sodomized with!"

Sika's father looked very troubled to say the least. He was ashamed, the edges of his disapproving frown twitched with it. He was angry with someone, maybe himself. His fists squeezed.

"The first time I was raped I was seventeen. By a forty year old man who told me not to cry," Sika's face screwed into a trembling sort of look, like she might start sobbing any minute now, "and when they flung me into a room after he was done with me, with the rest of the women they abused there, do you know what they told me?"

Sika's father didn't answer.

She scoffed in a way that almost sounded like a laugh. "They told me I'd get used to it."

Three, large tears dropped from her hazel eyes. They ran tracks of red down her flushed face. Sika's father again didn't reply.

"They told me I'd get use to it," she repeated, "and you know what? I did."

The tears kept coming and Hidan wished he had a tissue to offer her or somewhere secret nobody would see if he wiped her eyes for her. He felt bad. Kakuzu gave no indication he felt anything.

"I wish I had known," her father spoke finally, and he should have cleared his throat first.

"You would have if you would have gave half a fuck!" Sika shouted, slamming her hands down on the table. Her soft spoken father jumped.

"Sika," he tried to reapproch, " your mother asked me to-"

She didn't let him finish.

"Don't you dare try and blame this on my mother!" Sika shouted again, and this time Kakuzu's hand found its way to her wrist. He squeezed and the anger immediately fell from her face, replaced with a bone crushing pain that made her cry out.

"You're going to calm down, and stop screaming in my ear. Or else," Kakuzu threatened. Sika bit her lip and yanked her arm out of his grip. He let her.

"I appreciate from the bottom of my heart what you have done for me and my daughter," Sika's father interrupted. He was lying. He didn't appreciate her showing up at his door one bit.

"I must be in debt to you?" He asked.

"No," Kakuzu replied, "Sika settled her own debt."

"I see. I must congratulate you then, daughter. It seems you've grown up just fine without me," her father's words are both condescending and self depreciating.

It made Sika's stomach churn.

"Your mother is no longer, I assume?" He follows up with a question.

Sika nods.

Her father's face does not change. He isn't sad. "And, I will assume, that you are left with no place else to go?"

Sika nods again.

"Sika," her father spoke more gently, his emotion changed this time, "I would like to extend an offer for you to join my household then. If you'd rather not it's alright. I understand if you wish to leave again."

Sika narrowed her eyes at the table, and then looked up. There wasn't a word to describe his she was feeling. Fuck all if this bastard was gonna be high on on any God damn hog about it.

Sika was about to tear him a fucking new one when a sliding screen opened on the opposite side of the room. The door went in to the main house, and on it was a beautiful depiction of a lotus. For all its expensive paint job was worth though, it caught and came off the track before it could be opened all the way.

The man who opened it fixed it quickly, setting it back in its track before he stepped through the doorway. The man's narrow jaw set as his gaze settled on the meeting before him. His already high eyebrows raised, giving him a surprised tug of expression in his hardened, stiff frowning face. His eyes narrowed, and then his brows knit. The sun reflected off of the gold silk of his skirt and the obi tying it together gave slightly to a summer breeze as it blew through the room.

"Shirasagi?" The man questioned.

Sika's father grimaced. Hard.

Sika could have spit in his face.

"Isao," Shirasagi swallowed hard, "Isao, I'd like you to meet my daughter."

So this was the guy running around with her last name?

"It's nice to meet you," Isao's face does not lighten. A smile does not even threaten to crack his face. His posture remained stiff as a board and be settled next to Sika's father at the table. He didn't pour himself any tea, or greet anyone else, he only folded his arms. His body language signified he was closing himself off to the strangers.

Come to think of it though, weren't they sitting a little close together? Men didn't usually…

Oh.

_Oh._

"This is what you left my mother for?" Sika chastises in a low hiss.

"Your mother asked me to sever contact with you and her when I left," for the first time, her father tells her something she doesn't know, "She was ashamed of me too."

What? Like his life was one big Roman tragedy? When it was her that paid the price? Like he's off the hook just because of something a dead woman said fourteen years ago?

She didn't have many memories of him, and she certainly didn't remember him being this big of a fucking jerk.

"I'm angry because your a son of a bitch and I'm a rape victim! You could have married a fucking goat for all I-" She shouts and Kakuzu slaps his hand not so gently across her mouth. Her face stings, and when she tries to turn her head, to move away, his fingers close around her face.

She remembers the liquid fire of her jaw breaking and she stills.

"This is a lovely family reunion, but I have to burst this bubble," Kakuzu's grumbling voice spoke up.

"My job was to reunite her with her father. We aren't here to mediate unaired grievances. In fact, I'd like to leave as soon as possible," the banker continued, "With that in mind, Sika is still, unfortunately, my problem to an extent. Everything has a price. She is indebted to the organization we belong to for another eleven months and seven days."

Sika's father eyed him as he spoke. Hidan likewise eyed his partner. He'd never seen the old fart this long winded. What was he getting at?

"I don't care what happens to her as long as she continues serving the organization," Kakuzu continued, "but, if something happens to her to prevent her from doing her job, the party responsible will be no longer."

Oh. Well that was one way to passive aggressively threaten somebody. Maybe not so passive, maybe more aggressive.

Sika's father nodded. "I fully understand, that is, if she decides to accept my offer."

Isao remained unchanged.

The conversation that was supposed to be about her had somehow detoured, but had come full circle finally. Now this was about her. Now she could talk, but she knew she was limited by what she could say.

Yes or no. She had two choices.

Sika bit her cheek to keep from snarling out some smart ass answer. This was not how she hoped this meeting was going to go. She'd intended it to be more, well, more her talking, more people listening, and filled with a lot more apologies.

She wanted to cry and scream and tell the world how she felt, but she only had two options: Yes or no.

If she was gonna be honest with herself, though, she never thought she was going to get this far. She wondered what this would have been like if they would have stumbled on a grave instead.

Sika didn't want to live here, not with him, not anymore. She was now thoroughly disillusioned with the very idea of this passive swordsmen that she was now thinking herself lucky enough not to know.

But when you have no other option, she conceived, you have no other option.

"Sure," she spits out, and the words feel like vomit on her tongue, "sure, I'll stay."

"It's settled. We will be taking our leave," Kakuzu said, standing up unceremoniously. Hidan knew he had to follow him no matter how much he didn't want to.

The banker was out of the room in no time, but Hidan lagged, his gaze flicking over the three others at the table and then he stood up too, groaning and stretching his back. He grabbed his scythe on the way out.

"I'll see them out," Sika muttered, and she was dashing after them seconds after they left the room.

"You guys!" She shouts as soon as she's cleared the door. She jumps off if the porch and uses everything short if her ninja speed to catch up with them. They've barely left the front gate, their backs funneled through the big white walls of the compounds outer barrier. They were standing right there but for some reason it feels much more urgent than that. She was relieved when they stop, turn around, and wait for her to catch up.

"Miss us already?" Hidan snarks, smirking. He's got one eyebrow cocked and he looks so satisfied. He's not at all broke up? He's not sad or even a little bit disappointed even?

"Yeah, yeah I do," the kunoichi replies. Her face is stricken. The smirk falls from the other Jashinist's face.

"Hey, buck up," he asserts. He gives her a shove that's meant to be playful, but she ignores it like he didn't just knock her three inches to the right.

Oh Jashin, he thinks. For the love of Jashin, don't let her cry.

"Can't I go with you guys?" She asks, and her chin quivers with her words. He watches her bite her lip, hard. Here it comes, he thinks. It was hard enough keeping his own emotions off the surface. God, couldn't she just shove hers down a hole and forget about them like he did?

"Absolutely not," Kakuzu answers and Hidan is glad it's him that has to tell her no.

"Kakuzu, do you think you could lay off? Or, I dunno, stop being such a huge fucking dick?" Hidan retorts, and he thinks he's scoring himself some points being a good guy. The banker is scowling hard under his mask, his face, or what part is visible, is twisted into an angry look. He'd like to hurt them both.

"These people aren't my family," Sika's words are like a revelation to her, "I don't know what I expected."

"Who gives a shit?" He said, louder than necessary. Sika's eyes widen.

His immediate reaction is to shout, and to cease this nonsense if he can help it.

"Seriously!" He continued, "It's just a place to live. You don't gotta love them. And this house is so damn big. You got servants and cooks, Hell, they'd probably wash your ass for you if you asked. You'll be around forever Sika. They're all gonna keel off, then you inherit everything."

Sika bit her lip harder, until it bled and healed itself almost immediately. Her eyes didn't water, but worry creased itself into her face.

"That shit you spewed. About your father being able to pay when this was all over? It was horse shit wasn't it?" Kakuzu asked, interrupting, "you don't know him at all."

"Yeah," she said shakily, "Sorry about that."

Hidan balled a fast and held it out to Sika. He could manage that, he thought.

She looked at his hand and then up at him before she got the picture. She made a fist too and bumped it to his. She held her hand out to Kakuzu, who starred at her with disdain.

"Don't leave me hangin'," she chattered, her teeth working back into her lip. She tried so hard. She was succeeding.

Finally the accountant gave in. He touched their knuckles together weekly before he turned and started walking. Hidan flashed her one last toothy grin before he turned too, and Sika watched them go.

It took them twenty minutes to leave her sight, but she stood there another ten.

Nobody bothered her, and nobody would bother her if she just stood there all night. That wasn't a good plan though. She wasn't desperate, and besides, she could smell food cooking.

* * *

Dinner was a big bowl of udon noodles and a side of fried fish, complete with a long, awkward silence and four new replacement kids.

That's right, replacement kids. Four of them.

The oldest boy was Kai. He was six years her junior but it was hard to tell. He had a rugged, strong jaw that he'd clearly not inherited from his father, Isao, and his skin was tan too. He had big shoulders, but that was the extent of it. He was built lean and his smile had a gap, but he seemed friendly enough when he sat down. He was a man, an adult, and he wanted people to know it by the way he carried himself.

Kasumi was the eldest girl. Her face was entirely her father's but she carried her weight differently than both Isao and Kai, insinuating she had a different mother than her brother. She was fussy and mean, glaring at Sika once and then refused to even look in her general direction. She complained about everything and Isao let her. At only seventeen, she was jaded enough for a hundred crossed lovers.

Probably just spoiled actually, not jaded. Sika didn't like her.

The third child was a girl of fourteen years. Her name was Asami and her hair was honest to god bleach blonde, contrasting her two older siblings black. She had a different mother then her siblings too. She was the prettier sister though, with high cheekbones and thin shoulders, but she shied away from Kasumi but clung to her like an untrusting dog on a leash. She was quiet, which Sika liked.

Suta was the baby. He was only eleven and born from a surrogate after Sika's father had married Isao. He was still young, and he still had baby fat on his cheeks but he was adjusting well to his growth spurts. Sika gave him a once over and passed him off as another branch in the Isao Takano-Otori family tree, but when she glanced up and caught a twinge of red in his hair and a fleck of hazel in his eyes she knew.

This boy was her half brother. He wasn't a child from misguided love between a land baron and the next women that crossed his path. He was a child of love, with two fathers that had created him on purpose, with intent to raise as a pair.

He shared the same nose as Sika did with her father and he had a few freckles, a trait Sika did not share with her father.

He was the cause of the elephant in the room. Everyone but him knew.

That explained the glare she'd received from her step sister.

Sika supposed if neither of the fathers were going to say anything, neither was she. She returned her gaze to her plate, and emptied it moments later. She pulled the ladle from the soup pot on the table and dished herself out another bowl.

"Can I ask you a question?" Kai (that's his name, right?) asked.

"Shoot," she replied, face stuffed full of noodles and another spoonful made its way from her bowl. Her third bowl, she might add.

"What's that symbol around your neck?" His question makes Sika pause.

Her Jashinist pendant hung loose from Hidan's shirt. It'd probably been dangling and catching light throughout this awkward eatery time. After settling down her eating utensils and chewing the food in her mouth, she looked up and made eye contact with the stranger.

"I'm a very religious person. It's a connection to my God," she replied. She didn't let on anything more than a cool demeanor. She held her pendant in her fingers, gingerly, motioning to it as she spoke.

Kai raises his eyebrows and nods thoughtfully. He probably practiced some religion, and he'd probably studied it from a private tutor Sika was sure he'd had growing up.

Isao had a look on his face that she thought was probably surprise. He didn't give much emotion wise so she wasn't entirely sure but she had a good idea what he might be thinking. How does a prostitute become devoted?

Shirasagi himself though, he looked the most taken back.

Good, Sika thought, he should learn some things about her.

"Where did you say you were from?" Kai asks and now Sika's sure he's fucking with her.

"I didn't," she hisses, and left it at that.

The subject is dropped completely and the silence resumes, save for the clink of utensils on porcelain.

Mother fucking heathens.

* * *

The ache in Sika's legs had only bothered her the first week of her ninja training with Kisame. After that, she learned to ignore it. She'd been running, walking, jumping, constantly since then, pushing chakra though her feet, and her muscles had toned. They could stand up to the stress, she'd been conditioned sort of half assed, but she was determined. She could stand up to the demand on her body.

When she woke up the next morning, her chest hurt. Not in a way that her lord could heal, not in a physical, overused way.

Her chest felt like it was being crushed under water, like she was sinking further under. She was stuck here, in this house, with these people.

Last night a maid had shown her to a bedroom in the hallway adjacent to the ones her step siblings shared. All four of those strangers were just around the corner, and that was just not okay. Not at all.

So at eleven o'clock at night Sika set to move all the furniture in the bedroom that was to be hers. By midnight she had a bedroll, a rug, a plush chair, a few tables and a cabinet drug to the other side of the house. There was a room sitting completely empty, situated on the very back of the house. There were no windows, but there was a door to the outside, overlooking a patch of grass and dirt and the white washed back of the stockade like wall around the house. The door let out on to the wrap around porch and the roof overhung to keep it dry and shaded.

It was quiet in this corner of the house, all the rooms around this one were empty.

It made her a little angry that some rooms of this house were empty. It was excessive, a waste, they didn't need all the room. But, she supposed, she wouldn't be sleeping here if it weren't for the excess.

She sat up in bed, resituating her Katana after she'd slept with it next to her. It'd moved in the night and become partially unsheathed. She might have cut herself on it, actually, but if she had it was already healed.

Using the shining steel like a mirror, she brushed her hair with a brush she'd fished out of her bag. She couldn't exactly change clothes, so she decided wearing Hidan's shirt would have to do again today.

After setting her appearance back together, she unpacked a few items from her bag. She put her hair ties on top of the dresser, put the photo of her mother on the low table next to the bed, shoved her miscellaneous papers and copy of Ninja Monthly into a drawer and then slung her bag into the bottom of the cabinet.

She was all moved in and it'd taken a total of eight minutes.

Sika opened the door to her room, the one that led outside, and let the fresh air flow though. She'd been sleeping outside for so long she thought she might miss it. Lucky for her, nature wasn't going anywhere, and neither was her bed roll. She spent the morning propped up on pillows and meditating. She sat cross legged, her katana resting on her lap, and closed her eyes.

A bird sung in the distance. The wind shook the trees.

Though she couldn't see over the wall, she supposed there must be a forest on the other side.

An unholy shriek cut through the air and immediately Sika snapped out of her trance. Her hands immediately went for the hilt of her blade and she unsheathed it, tearing out of her bed and outside, where the source of the screams had come.

She wasn't like Hidan, or Kakuzu, or any other ninja that had been taught from the time they were young, always coiled up and ready to murder like some wild animal backed in to a corner. Sika's apprehension came from reason, not academy teaching. If something was going to attack her, she needed to be faster than it.

She was in a battle pose when she burst out on to the grass, but no one was there.

The screaming continued, but as Sika stood, taking deep breaths, she realized she wasn't under attack.

Threat was null, but where was the screaming coming from?

She stepped back on to the porch, her katana hilt still gripped firmly in her hand, and walked around the house in search of the source.

She turned a corner and her heart tugged on her chest. Suta, her half brother, was playing with Asami. He was the source of the noise, they both had buckets of water, splashing each other with the chilly liquid. Kai was holding the garden hose, standing in the grass and looking up at Kasumi and her father. They were smiling, all of them.

She got a little closer on impulse only, but stopped abruptly after realizing they were going to see her. She was about to wheel around and go back the way she'd come when Suta screamed her name.

"Sika!" He screamed, "hi!" And then squealed as Asami dumped more water on to him, but she paused too, smiling and panting, looking at Sika too. Suta was infatuated with his older half sister, Sika could tell by the way he looked at her. It was exciting to find out he had another big sister, and she was even a ninja! He was about to run to her, to hug her and soak her cloths with water too, but Kasumi had come off the porch and grabbed him, tugging his wet shoulder back.

"I thought you were going to stay in bed all day," the Kasumi snarked in her preachy, shrill voice.

"Like there's fuck all else for me to do around here," Sika snorted, blowing her off, "mind your own business."

Kasumi opened her mouth but the words didn't make it out in time.

"That's a nicely made Katana," Shiasagi's voice drifted. He was still smiling, if only slightly now.

Sika looked down at her white knuckled hand at the glinting sword she gripped in a death hold. "Yeah, I like it," she moved it from her side to behind her back, like she was hiding it.

Her father was blowing smoke up her ass, he knew it was a standard issue, plain blade. It wasn't nicely made, it was average.

"Who was your teacher?" He asked, and he might as well of just asked her for her life story. He had been a shinobi. He was smart enough to piece together information. If he was asking her private questions he was trying to make a timeline.

"One of the seven swordsmen," Sika replied quickly, but she didn't mention which.

"That's impressive," he nodded, "I never was quite that good."

"Papa, you used to be a swordsmen?" Suta asked, fallowing as Asami guided him back on to the porch and grabbed a towel for him.

"Sure did squirt," the man confirmed, smiling proudly down at his son.

"Will you show us some of your cool moves? You gotta have cool moves, right?" Suta asked, his eyes practically sparkling in admiration.

"Not today," Shirasagi said, and ruffled his son's wet hair. It stuck up like the back if a chicken's ass after that, and Suta tried in vain to smooth it down again.

"Sika, will you?" The boy asked, not at all bothered by his father's no.

"Suta, you have things to do," Kasumi snapped quickly, and used the boy's still wet shirt to tug him inside the house, and then, as an afterthought, she called the younger sister along with her. Asami followed her Immediately.

Kai sort of chuffed and turned the hose off. He disappeared around the curve of the house, leaving only Sika and Shirasagi left standing.

The girl regarded her father and left for her room.

* * *

Three days of wearing the same black shirt was apparently not acceptable. Isao confronted her about it one morning at breakfast in front of the whole family. Immediately Sika shed her shirt, revealing the stained, worn bandeau underneath and Kasumi nearly choked on her egg. If she knew one way to get their goat she knew a hundred, and this was number fifty on the list.

Isao threw her a bag of coins and told her not to come back until she had a wardrobe that consisted of more than three articles of clothing. There was a tailor on the mainland and she could probably find whatever she needed there.

She boarded a boat and rode over, and her feet were back on land by noon.

Clothes shopping was easy. Black and grey and a belt and a pair of fucking shoes, not ninja sandals, but they were shoes. She picked up one colored shirt, a teal blouse that was a little low cut for her taste, but she bought it anyway. Everything fit neatly in to her backpack, except for the shoes, which she wore out.

Sika decided lunch was in order next, so that meant something greasy from a food stand. They had fried eel down the street, and that sounded good at the moment.

"Two," Sika said, motioning the number two on her fingers to the man behind the stand. The man nodded, pulled an eel out of the bucket nearby, and began preparing it.

Sika couldn't help but notice another wanted poster starring her in the face, nailed to the stand's wooden frame. This stand was no exception to the propaganda state of the city. There it was, her father's husband starring her in the face.

"So, this guy," she began, carefully, motioning to the poster, "what'd he do?"

"You must be new around here," the man chuckled, "Long version or the shirt version?"

"Long," Sika replied, as the man caught a second eel and started on that one too.

"So this guy moves in up there on the island, that one," the man motions with a knife in the direction Sika had come, "and he murders the mayor and says it's his own sovereign nation. Nobody there is gonna fight back, he's got a gang, he's the boss, and anybody that tries to stop him? Murdered. From that point of he starts building an army. He's got any guy aged twenty to thirty seven in the force, it's insane, really. He's taking people from their families, keeping parents from kids, leaving everybody short handed. Last year crops rotted in the fields, you got me?"

Sika nods as the man throws her eel into the fryer, and he has to speak louder to continue. "So then, he starts annexing every port city not in control of the daimyo to his little regime. More soldiers, more dead."

"And nobody's called up the hidden rock village and complained?" Sika asks, eyebrows raised. The man pulls her eels out of the fryer and hands them to her.

"Sure, lots of people have," he replies and takes the money Sika hands him, "but there's a medicinal flower that grows on that island, and this son of a bitch," he motions to the poster, "threatened to burn them all. Put his house right on top of where they grow."

"So, he holds the flowers hostage in return for safety? He just does whatever he wants? What do these flowers cure, honestly?" Sika asks in disbelief. She'd never seen so much as a daisy in the entire time she'd stayed there.

"Cancer," the man replies, very seriously. Sika's eyebrows furrowed. There was no way in hell!

"I'm just telling you what I know," the man replies. He can see that she doesn't believe him, "I've seen it happen. Here's your eel, by the way."

Sika takes her food and immediately starts munching. Not bad, not bad at all.

"So, this miracle flowers, they only cure cancer if they're grown on the island?" She asks between bites.

He nods, "there's a water basin under the island, the minerals from it seep into the soil."

Sure, alright. Sika had heard enough stupid shit in the last two months of ninja training. This honest to god was not the strangest thing she'd been told.

"Thanks," she said, turning on her heel and waving.

"Come back again," the man replied.

Sika decided she would not. The eel wasn't _that_ good.

* * *

Sika only needed one more thing before she got back on the boat, and she had a pretty good idea where to find it. Crawling around behind a bar like a rat was a young man around her age, dressed in a nice jacket, but wrinkled clothes and dirty shoes.

This was the guy she was looking for, they all tended to look the same.

"It's summer, what's with the jacket?" She asked, approaching him. She'd walked around the corner into this alley where she'd been watching him for the past few minutes and stride slow, so as not to alarm him.

"Skin condition," the man answer, sneering.

"Yeah? You sure you're not hocking?" She smirked, coming closer, he returned her gaze.

"Ain't got nothing," he replied, shoving his hands deeper into his pockets.

"Not even if I'm shopping around?" She asked, raising her eyebrows.

"Well, depends on what you're shopping for?" He learned back on his heels.

"Just a little something to take the edge off," Sika kept her grin constant, "family, you know?"

"Yeah, I know," he relaxed, typical of his kind of person. Always needing reassurance and always needing to secure their own safety. In a little town like this, Sika wondered who exactly would arrest this guy? Did they even have police?

"How much do you need?"

"A lot," Sika grabbed a fist full of cash out of her short's pocket and forked it over, the man took it and traded her a brown baggie out of his jacket pocket. Sika opened it immediately and dumped it out in her hand, much to the man's distain.

Four plastic sandwich bags of a green, leafy substance lay mashed in the bags, and Sika opened the one on top and stuck it to her nose. The smell was comparable to a skunk, strong and musky and unappealing to everyone else but those who wanted it.

"Hey, watch where you show that stuff around!" The man hushed. Jashin, this guy was a pathetic excuse for a god damn drug dealer.

"Yeah, hold on, I just gotta find a couple working brain cells to think about that," Sika laughed, "this is good stuff. You keep this shit coming and we got no problems, understood?"

He made a face like he was afraid off of a sudden, his body back tense and his hands raised, in a surrender. She laughed, threw back her head and laughed, and shoved the sandwich sacks back into the brown bag, and shoved it all into her backpack.

"Rolls?" She asked, and the man hurriedly produced another bag, full of brown paper made of something to cigarette rolls.

"Thanks," she grinned, and then She revolved face and left the guy standing there, confused and intimidated and shaking slightly. She boarded the boat back home immediately after.

She went to her room as soon as she arrived back at the house, walking around the house outside instead of through it so she might avoid her family. The last thing she needed was Kasumi criticizing her clothing choices or her father's meddlesome gaze to sit in her and make her squirm. She shouldn't be tip toeing in what was supposed to be her house, but here she was, and Sika found herself thinking back to what Hidan said. These people weren't her family.

She wadded up her bed blanket in the chair in her room, pulled an end table from another room up to it, and sat back with her purchases.

First she pulled out a bag from her stash and fingered the ground up green mess in front of her. Hastily she rolled herself a joint, and then set to smoking it while she hung up her new clothes and put her backpack away. The rest of the weed, she decided, she was going to hide.

Just one, she just needed one to take the edge off, she decided. Recreational drug use wasn't new to her, she reminded herself, but the higher she got the more nervous she became until finally she ground it out on the end table and took a deep breath.

"Okay," she shook as she drew in breath, "okay you flashing piece of trash. Your bulletproof."

She picked her joint back up, put it between her lips and relit it.

Yes. She was bullet proof. And she'd stay that way.

* * *

Did anybody catch the cool moves line I snuck in there? It's supposed to mirror what Sika says to Hidan in chapter 1.

The meaning of the chapter title is "to cease obligation"

*I'd like to make one more note, before anyone starts calling homophobia, Sika isn't angry about her day being gay, shes angry he abandoned her and was still too self centered to care. He continued making excuses as to why he hadn't been around, including blaming Sika's mother. However, her father does attempt to make nice with her later on.

I'm a firm believer that nobody is completely bad or completely good. its a running theme I have in a lot of my literature.


	8. Chapter 8: Cannabis

Chapter 8: Cannabis

* * *

"What's that smell?"  
Sika had been hearing people say that every night for the past four days. A few maids at first, and then her younger step sister, but now it was the older girl, the bossy almost-adult that thought she run the place. The door to her room slid open, the lights from her bedroom illuminating the darkened hall way.  
"Sika, do you- oh! Oh my god!"  
Sika rose her eyebrows and brought two fingers to her lips. She took the object from between them and blew a cloud of smoke in to the air.  
"It's you! Lord help me, is that- oh, oh my lord, it is! Put that out!" The still teenager shrieked. Her gaze was intense.  
"No."  
"Put it out! Now!" She was near screaming, her fists clenched and her black hair barely stayed behind her shoulders. It was beginning to muss with her exaggerated frustration.  
Sika put the joint back to her lips and sucked, the hot tip burning further down the brown paper she'd rolled it in. "No," she repeated, the joint moving with her lips.  
"Put it out now before I go get our fathers!" She commanded, "there will be consequences!"  
Sika shrugged. "Knock yourself out."  
Sika could practically see the flames of hell in her eyes as she turned around and stomped off, leaving the door open.  
A maid passed by, smiled meekly at her, and then hurried on her way, picking up her pace in a hurry to leave. Another, much more confident woman came by and dumped her ashtray in the time it took for the men of the house to arrive.  
Sika's step father led the way, coming to stand in her doorway with a scowl set on his features. Sika's own father fallowed closely behind him, looking much more worried.  
"What is the meaning of this?" Isao barked.  
Sika had to stop a second and revaluate herself before she spoke. She was sitting, well, more like laying, in a slumped over position in an overstuffed, plush chair. Her katana leaned on the chair's leg and the table next to her held three kinds of pop and a wide assortment of snacks besides her ashtray.  
At least she was being clean about it.  
"Pot," the tawny haired girl drawled, pulling the joint from her lips once again to blow white smoke from her lungs. Her eyes were probably puffy and red, but she was oh so relaxed. She really couldn't be bothered to care.  
Isao's eyes widened and his features set harder. He was frustrated with her, she knew it. He thought she was trash, she knew that too.  
As her step father's mouth opened to begin lecturing or screaming, something, a hand set gently on his shoulder before the words came out. Sika's father smiled warmly at his husband and something passed between them. Isao took a step back, lowering his head unconscious submission, and let his husband though.  
"Oh father, you can't!" Kasumi shouted, her tone full of contempt and disbelief. Isao shot his daughter a glare and she was silenced.  
Sika's father looked though the smoke at his own daughter, unmoving and unspeaking. He simply starred at her, a small smile set on his face. He was disappointed, Sika decided as she took another drag.  
"Want some?" She offered, holding out the joint to him.  
He didn't respond for a moment. He'd been thinking and that'd caused a short circuit in his brain. She watched him reboot and then he answered, "no thank you," polite as ever.  
"Come," he said to the rest of the family, revolving to face them. Isao made no more motions against her, simply put a hand on the back of his sputtering daughter and guided her away from the room. With his left hand, Sika's father moved to close the bedroom door, looking over his shoulder and the small smile gone. He wasn't going to yell, she wasn't in trouble. She was an adult after all.  
The knob clicked shut and he was gone.  
Sika drew in another breath of smoke.  
"Hey, what's that smell? Is there a skunk?"  
Sika thought for a moment she might put her smoke out if Suta was gonna barge in, she didn't exactly want the child of the house seeing her doing drugs, but Isao called his name and she heard the thumps of his feet get quieter on the hardwood until they were gone with him.  
Sika exhaled once again and pulled a baggie out of the chair cushion. In it was a bunch more weed and some papers to roll it with. She'd have to tell the guy to keep it coming.

* * *

"What are you smoking?"  
Sika gazed at her younger brother, her head tilted back and the joint hanging loosely from her lips. She sat outside on the porch behind her room. She'd been enjoying the court yard, facing the complex's back wall and hedge of flowers when Suta walked around the house, his feet noisily scuffing the earth as he neared her. Even if Sika had not been a shinobi she would have known he was coming.  
"Stuff," she chuffed.  
"Are you supposed to be?" He asked. He hadn't meant it mean, he was really just curious.  
"Yeah," she replied, but snuffed it out on the wood of the porch and set the joint down behind her.  
"Kasumi said you weren't and not to go around you," he fallowed up. He sounded like a classic kid. He sounded like he wanted to get near her, but he wasn't quite sure if he should.  
He was too old for this, Sika thought.  
"It smells funny, too," the boy added as an after thought.  
"Do you always do everything she says?" Sika asked, cocking an eyebrow. A shy smile crossed Suta's face. Sika smirked too.  
"I bet she said not to come around me before I started smoking, though, is that right?" The older sibling asked.  
"Yeah, the day you got here," he agreed. He was a little tattle tale, wasn't he?  
"So what do you think?" She asked, pulling her left leg to fold it up under herself.  
He thought for a moment, his smile widening, "I think you're kinda cool."  
That made Sika laugh, her smile melting into a genuine, but slightly skeptic smile, "well thanks."  
"Nobody will explain to me why us being related is different from everybody else," he said coming closer to her. He stopped a few feet away, still unsure. "Dad keeps saying it's the same, papa just says yeah, and not to worry about it, and Kasumi keeps saying it's way different, but nobody wants to tell me what it's about. It's all hush-hush, I don't get it."  
"And let me guess, you wanted me to tell you all about it?" Sika laughed a little harder, almost out of spite, "because Kasumi's being a bitch about it and you guess you'll just ask me and I'll spill it?"  
Suta nodded, taken back, and maybe a little hurt she'd laughed at him. "Everybody's treating me like a little kid," he mumbled.  
Sika huffed.  
She probably shouldn't tell him.  
Her father and his husband had made it clear to the boy that he wasn't supposed to know. They'd specially told him not to worry about it, and she thought, if she didn't tell him, then he'd probably forget about it.  
She shouldn't tell him, but she was going to.  
"You and me are half siblings. We have the same father. I mean, you know two guys can't have kids, right?" Sika rose her eyebrows and spoke very carefully and levely. She didn't want to upset him with her tone. She'd rather him be rightfully upset with the message of the words rather than the way she'd said it.  
"Yeah. I knew that," he said, a bit sad, "that guys couldn't- not that, you know."  
"Yeah. But," Sika mused, "blood don't matter as much as you think. You grew up with them, they're not no less your family."  
"Is it okay that I still wanna get to know you too?" He asked, looking up from a very interesting spot on the ground.  
Sika laughed again, this time it was joyful and she smiled whole heartedly, "yeah, yeah. There's nothing wrong with that."

* * *

When Sika sat down at the dinner table, she sat on the far end, away from her father, away from her stepfather, and somehow all three of her step-siblings hand ended up on the opposite side. Suta, however, who was the last to the table, plopped down right next to her, grinning like a fox in a hen house.  
Kasumi glared at Sika like she was a traitor but the kunoichi did not acknowledge it.  
Dinner was prepared by one of the two maids and consisted of grilled fish, white rice, spring rolls, and a thin broth soup with large chunks of vegetables.  
It was food, so it was good.  
Sika ate probably twice as much as she should have, because, you know, food.  
Kai looked downright disgusted. The sisters didn't look her way. Her own father looked bewildered, but he tried not to make faces. That wouldn't be polite.  
"Didn't they feed you where you came from?" Kai tried to joke, grimacing through his fake smile.  
"No," Sika answered flatly. She wasn't in the mood for jokes. She reached for a fourth spring roll.  
"Where'd you live before you lived here?" Suta asked, genuinely curious.  
Oh, right, he didn't know about the whole…  
"I don't know if that's a-" Sika's father tried to stop the conversation before it started. He failed.  
"I worked in a brothel," Sika answered between bites of food, her mouth full still, "you know what that is, don't you?"  
"Oh for goodness sakes!" Kasumi interjected, pulling Suta's surprised look away from his oldest sister and redirected it to the now second oldest sister. "He's a child!" She interrupted, personally offended.  
"Oh come on," Sika retorted, eyebrows furrowed in frustration, "he's eleven, I'm sure he already knows what it is," she snorted, " 'Kids old enough to know anyway."  
"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure if teaching promiscuity to a child is a good idea!" Kasumi spat back.  
Sika groaned and rolled her eyes. "You know, it's not like I'm telling him how to have sex. And, fuck, like knowing what a brothel is made you promiscuous. What rock did you crawl out from under?"  
"Alright, alright," Isao cut in.  
"That's enough," Sika's father agreed.  
Shrugging, Sika accepted she'd lost the argument and relaxed into her seat at the table. She'd smoked before she'd come out of her room, so it was easy for her to forgive and forget in just that moment. She accepted her father felt bad enough for what he'd done to her to let her stay in his home, but she couldn't exactly go around fighting with his replacement kids, now could she?  
If they wanted to get technical, Sika was an adult, and she should probably be living on her own or married, but she didn't exactly have any money of her own to move. She was on call for the Akatsuki twenty-four seven, and poofing off in the middle of the work day and returning drenched with someone else's blood wasn't exactly acceptable work wear.  
Sika doubted very seriously that her father felt anything for her other than pity, and that was fine. As long as she had food and a bed she wasn't complaining.  
"Sika," Suta mumbled, unsure if he should speak. Everyone was glad he broke the tension. "Could you help me with my math homework after dinner?"  
Asami looked sort of relieved. He usually asked her for help, and she was hopeless at math.  
She really wanted to just be honest with him and tell him that she was way too high to even reason, much less do math, but she supposed that was where she was supposed to draw the line. Now that wasn't something you should say to a kid.  
"Yeah, sure uh, in a while."

* * *

Sika was sitting, alone, she might add, at a table in a parlor room, toking a joint when the door opened.  
"Hello," her father greeted when she didn't move to acknowledge him.  
"Look, all I wanna do is sit here and get so high I can't feel my face. That's all," she told him. She was firm.  
"That's alright," the man replied, and he moved to sit across from her. "I was just doing some paperwork."  
He did indeed have an armful of paperwork. He shuffled it around as Sika took another puff and held the smoke in her lungs. She narrowed her eyes. What was he up to?  
"The weather has been so nice lately," he mused.  
Oh. Like fuck, this was happening.  
"What do you want?" She spat like her words were venom.  
He looked surprised, hurt almost. He straightened himself in an attempt to brush off her words.  
"That was brash," he commented.  
She scoffed, "out with it."  
"I simply wanted to spend a little time talking. Is that too much to ask?"  
Still defensive, Sika drew her arms out, placing them on the table and puffing out her chest in an effort to make herself look bigger, stronger. "I'm not sure if we have much to talk about."  
"I'm sorry you feel that way," he said, solum, "and," he paused, frowning.  
"I'm sorry I've hurt you. It was not my intention. I understand now what the consequences wrought."  
Sika's mouth fell open in surprise but she immediately shut it. She shifted her gaze down, glaring hard at some offending piece of smoke ash on the table.  
This was what she'd wanted all along but it didn't feel like it should have.  
It felt dirty, and it stung. It stung somewhere down past the smoke haze, past her heart and buried deep in her guts. It made her feel like she wanted to puke.  
"Yeah," She muttered, not sure what else to say. She knew she should have said something more respectful. Something along the lines of a formal accept of apology but Sika didn't know if she wanted to. She didn't know if she was ready.  
"What are you working on?" Sika asked, hurriedly, needing to change the subject.  
"Oh just," her father began, not missing a beat, "I'm looking at battle plans. I want to annex an area of farm fields beyond the port I'm working on."  
"And by annex, you mean gain possession by force?"  
"Well when you put it that way," he replied loftily. The edges of his mouth turned up to sort of a teasing smile. Sika didn't think it was funny.  
"The larger the country, the more power we have," he reminded. Sika shrugged, frowning.  
"What?" Her father asked.  
"It's just I heard some stuff," she said flatly. She flicked ash off if the table, on to the floor and took another puff off her joint before she ground it into the corner of the table. Her father didn't react. The table was no worse for wear.  
"None of it was good," she continued, much quieter.  
"We are not a popular group," he agreed.  
Absentmindedly, Sika thumbed over her pendant, twisting her fingers into the triangle and slipping them through the circle.  
"I'll say."

* * *

Sika was just leaving the bathroom when she was summoned.  
She'd left the cool, dark confines of the house for bright sunlight. The ground was bare, only covered by dirt and ash. What was left of the trees smoldered, steaming and smoking and filling the air with a choking haze. Something had defiantly caused a forest fire.  
She managed not to fall on her ass this time. She caught herself on crouched legs and shot back to her feet to face Hidan and Kakuzu.  
"Before you even start," Kakuzu barked, "we're in the middle of something. Get to work."  
"What do you need me to do?" She asked, drawing her blade from her back.  
Kakuzu didn't need to answer, a shower of kunai knives sent her on the offensive. The few she didn't knock away were too badly aimed to matter. Behind her, the offending party of five stood, clad in black gas masks and charcoal gray jumpsuits.  
"Taking all my fun, Kakuzu!" Hidan griped, his grip tight on his scythe.  
"We have something better to do," the older man growled.  
Sika crouched, about to jump out into the fray but a large hand yanked her long hair, pulling her back.  
"You don't regenerate if you get burnt. I've been piecing Hidan back together for three days, I don't need you singing your fingers off too," Kakuzu's voice hinted at how tired he really was. Now she was paying attention, Sika could see the seam and threads on his body hung loosely out of his tattered cloak. He and his partner were both covered in soot.  
Hidan looked much more energetic, but Sika noticed the lack of blood on his person. Kakuzu hadn't let him sacrifice anyone? Whatever it was they were going at, they must have needed to do it fast. Sika also noticed his eyebrows were missing, probably burned off.  
"Don't get cocky!" Kakuzu shouted, releasing her.  
The jashinist sprung forward, her katana in her hand.  
Immediately, kunai knives flew from her opponents hand. She knocked away any she couldn't dodge, save for one that scraped her cheek. She couldn't particularly tell whether her opponents were male or female, but it didn't matter. They were going to die either way.  
The gray haze that so often clouded her brain parted and the voice in her head was shrieking. Screaming. Shouting at her through a thinning haze in her brain.  
"Lay waste to them!" It howled, "murder them where they stand!"  
Sika would do her best to oblige.  
She invaded the first person's space without hesitation. She slashed with her katana, but the opponent dodged. It quickly turned into a dance with her pushing forward and them jumping back until an attack from the side had her switching her attention.  
It was a mistake to leave herself open.  
She swore and cussed, and she drew away from the fight, holding her upper arm, minus one lower arm.  
"My arm!" she screeched. "Fuck!"  
Here she was, and there was her god damn arm laying in the dirt and not attached to her fucking body. "Fuck! Fucking fuck!"  
Kakuzu and Hidan had vanished, leaving her alone with her opponents. All five stood, still, watching.  
"My fucking arm!"  
These people would die. It had already been decided.  
Sika would end them.  
Her shirt came off, and she wrapped it sloppily around her bleeding appendage.  
"Mother of all fuck!" The girl shouted. She wanted to press her hand to her bleeding stump, to roll on the ground in agony, but right now she was open to attack.  
She took a deep breath, tightened her grip on her sword, and rushed forward again.  
She meet someone different in battle this time, and they lost their head.  
Someone else lost their fingers, and then their hand, and then their arm. Then they lost their other arm. They stayed down after they lost a leg.  
Her swordsman training was doing her well, she was holding her own. She moved fast, like a dance. She was a warrior, a shinobi, a fucking killer with the intent to cause total devastation.  
She dodged right to avoid a fireball launched her way. Her shirt caught fire, and she dropped it, letting it fall burning to the ground. The bleeding from her arm had slowed to a trickle.  
That was a little too close for comfort.  
Alright, if they wanted to fight with fire she could fight with- FUCK.  
Her fucking arm was laying in the dirt, how was she supposed to make hand signs one handed?  
Well, actually, nobody ever said it had to be her hand, did they?  
She had three perfectly good sets of hands in front of her, not including the dead guys.  
What to do with her sword, though? She couldn't exactly leave it, that was asking for trouble. She couldn't keep it in her hand either, it would impede her hand signs.  
She raised the grip of the blade to her mouth and locked her jaw. That would have to do.  
Sika picked off one of her opposers, the one farthest to the left, and rushed them.  
She'd never tried to fight with her blade in her mouth before, and she was regretting not being prepared. She was basically throwing her entire body at her opponent and jerking her head wildly in a poor attempt to slash.  
She took damage. The person she attacked was too busy trying to dodge, but his friends weren't. A kunai knife stuck in her leg, ten senbon needles stuck in her side, a string of flames narrowly missing her thigh, and blood running her clothes. All the while she grabbed wildly for a hand, anyone's hand. Her arm throbbed painfully, forcing wince after grimace each time she moved the limb.  
Her lungs heaved. She huffed and sucked in hair in vain to keep her breath in time with her heartbeat. If this wasn't cardiac arrest, Sika would have been surprised.  
Her muscles screamed at her to stop, but she knew she couldn't. She was wearing her opposer down. Finally, the ninja faltered, and Sika slapped her hand into theirs.  
She forced her opponents finger's into the seals snake, ox, tiger, and finished with snake.  
Her chakra protested, unused for weeks and then forced into compliance. It lashed somewhere deep in her belly, before water spat out of her mouth, forcing open her jaw and spraying out her nose like vomit. Her Katana shot out of her mouth like canon fire, lost somewhere in the fray. Sika felt her chakra extend to the small lake forming at her feet.  
The other ninja finally struggled away, jumping out of the vicinity as enough water welled to form a wave large enough for the exploding water wall.  
The water hissed as it touched the scorched trees nearby, and steam rolled from the ground as the water spread.  
There were only about four inches of water here, and it was receding. This attack had been a total waste, God damn it.  
Sika didn't even bother using her chakra to walk on the water, she just waited through it.  
Her lungs burned almost as hard as her muscles.  
Thankfully, her opponents seemed just as tired as she was. They held off as the water receded. Adrenaline worked against you in situations like this.  
Sika didn't think she could get close enough to them again to use their hand to cast another Jutsu. Stupid, stupid, stupid. Why hadn't she cast the Sweet Sakura Mist? She might be a little further ahead had she done that to immobilize the enemy. At least until she took a minute to think.  
What other options did she have?  
Sword fighting was out unless she wanted to end up as a bucket of ashes.  
No more jutsu.  
Shit, fuck. Her arm hurt. Her other wounds hurt too, but her arm took the fucking cake.  
The ground was nothing but slippery mush now. And she was actively bleeding on it.  
She wished these bastards knew what it fucking felt like to be her. To have a head buzzing with adrenaline. To have a voice that demanded destruction refusing to unscramble her thoughts.  
Oh.  
The realization hit her like a ton of bricks.  
Hesitantly, she pulled four of the senbon needles from her side and turned them over in her fingers.  
She had another option. It would be easy, what with her arm actively bleeding. Lord Jashin would be pleased.

* * *

When Sika opened her eyes, the intensity of the pleasure she experienced was seriously dampened by the horrible sting of a fresh wound and exposed bone. The air was heavy with the stench of burnt hair and urine. Sika moved to brush a strand of her muddied, snarled hair from her eyes. She was meet with resistance from the uncomfortable half hard, half sticky mess of rusty blood covering her torso.  
She noted her fingernails were black, and upon turning over her hand, she discovered she'd burned off her first layer of skin. That's what she got for not being fast enough.  
The muscle around her eyes ached, bruised and blackened on both sides. Her lip was split. There was skin on her chest hanging loosely.  
She could still feel the holes in her side trying to close.  
Very carefully, she stood up. She took a deep, stinging breath, and staggered deeper into the forest in search of Hidan and Kakuzu.

* * *

Hidan and Kakuzu were easy to find, as it turned out. There was an explosion about five kilometers to her left and Sika stumbled on strengthening feet that way.  
The building looked like an old bath house and judging by a tree laying over the road to it, it hadn't been used in some time. The once cream colored walls were covered in moss and vines, and trees grew out of the third story roof up towards the sun. A gigantic hole was blown into the side of the building two stories up, so if it hadn't already been rendered useless it was now.  
One of Hidan's war cries split the air and Sika knew she was in the right place.  
Inside the building, dead bodies littered the floor. The walls were scarred with evidence of Hidan's scythe and sprays of blood where these worthless heathen's hearts had been pulled wrong side out by Kakuzu. There was a katana stuck in a nearby bookcase, and Sika pulled it from its confines before she continued up the stairs.  
The second floor wasn't in much better shape, but now Sika could hear thumping on the ceiling, and one more set of stairs let her out onto the battlefield. The sun shone in the massive hole in the wall, illuminating a large mural of a pheasant and what might have been a locker room of sorts for the bathhouse patrons.  
So soon had she rounded the wall to enter the room did Hidan's entire body go flying by her. She barely got out of the way.  
"Mother of fuck," he groaned, the cable to his scythe severed and hanging loosely from his shredded cloak. He was still burnt from earlier, but it had healed some. What had not healed was a raw, bleeding patch of skin on his arm and several deep wounds to his shoulder.  
"You okay?" Sika asked, looking over him but she didn't offer him a hand up.  
"Yeah," Hidan affirmed, rubbing the back of his head. He looked up at her and blinked before he spoke. "What the fuck happened to you?"  
"Lost my arm," Sika stated plainly. She was feeling pretty sluggish from the blood loss still. Unable to feel much more than tired.  
"How in the hell do you just lose your arm?" Hidan narrowed his eyes. "Wait. Don't answer that."  
Sika shrugged nonchalantly.  
Behind her, Kakuzu had a pretty good handle on things. Sika turned back to watch just in time as some twisting coiling creature came spilling out of his back like ink, like writhing black tentacles. The create stood on two legs, it's yellow nose a contrast to us white face and black skin. It moved stiffly, jerking until it was standing up tall. It stood eight feet tall and it's arms bunked at its sides. Without warning it's mouth opened and lightning shot from it, hitting Kakuzu's opponent as they tried to rush him.  
This was his lightning jutsu. And it was powerful.  
The bolt of lightning shot the opposing man through the wall, and if that didn't kill him, the fall probably would, Sika decided.  
"I guess I found you just as you were finishing up," Sika said. She tried to move her arm, to fix her bandeau, but muscles flexed and nothing moved. Oh. Right.  
"Yeah. Lucky you. I hate these mob boss hits, they're stupid. This fucker sicked his best fighters on us first and then had nothing but his stupid lousy speed in the end. I swear I haven't been able to hit him a single time in twenty minutes," Hidan bitched like it was his job.  
The beast standing behind Kakuzu stood still fit just a moment. A breeze blew into the room, whipping up dust from the now broken drywall. The banker grunted and the creature looked down at him. Kakuzu didn't acknowledge it, no even as it turned its back to him and slithered tail first back into his being. The pale mask settling right back into his skin.  
"That's the lightning jutsu?" Sika inquired.  
"Yeah. That was War," Hidan agreed. "He's got three others. The fire one's conquest, the water one's famine, winds plague."  
That was pretty interesting. The masks carried the names of the four horsemen of the apocalypse. Sika watched Kakuzu take a deep breath, and then he turned to them.  
"How did you manage to stub your goddamn arm?" He asked sourly.  
"I wasn't fast enough," the girl admitted.  
Kakuzu scoffed. "Did you at least take care of your assignment?"  
Sika nodded slowly.  
"He can fix you. Sewed my head back at one time," Hidan notioned.  
"After I find my head," Kakuzu rejected.  
The masked man pushed his way past Sika and tromping down the stairs. The thumping of his feet on the wood got quieter as he left until finally, Sika couldn't hear it at all. They'd better follow him, though. Kakuzu would almost certainly leave them behind.  
Sika turned and extended a hand to Hidan. He squinted, clearly concussed, at her hand before he followed her arm up to her face. They made eye contact for a few moments before he finally grabbed her hand and Sika helped pull him up. Together they followed after Kakuzu.  
The banker was outside, crouched over the corpse of the man he had finished off. Sika watched as he used a kunai knife to saw the man's flesh from his body and pull his vertebrae apart from his spine. Kakuzu stood up, his fingers fisted in the man's hair.  
"Where is your arm?" He asked gruffly.  
"Laying in the field, I think. I don't know, I just left it to come friend you guys," Sika replied.  
"You didn't think to bring it with you?" He spat.  
"I've got one hand to hold a sword in."  
Kakuzu rolled his eyes. "Go find it."

* * *

The first stitch in her arm wasn't painful. It was more like getting stuck with a needle. Just a little burn. The twenty-fifth, all the way until Kakuzu finished was the painful part. Sika's skin was burning red from being stuck over and over. Sika sat still as best she could, wincing all the while. The tattoo still hurt worse.  
Kakuzu sat behind her, his legs folded and Sika sat in front of him, facing the hole in the wall upstairs in the bath house. Hidan lay down nearby, lounging on his side with his head propped up on his arm. He spoke quietly with Sika, being her distraction one again.  
"So what's the kid like, your little brother?" He asked.  
"He's okay I guess. Looks more like my dad than I do. He's just a kid, though, I think he's only like eleven?" Sika mused, keeping her eyes on her friend.  
"What about the other ones?"  
"Oh shit," Sika laughed, earning a smack from Kakuzu for moving. "I started smoking pot in the house. You should have seen the fucking fit my step sister through."  
"You started smoking pot?" Hidan's eyebrows rose.  
"Yeah. Takes the edge off. It's nice," Sika agreed. At least she wasn't feeling like she was running on empty anymore.  
The conversation lulled for a moment, just long enough for Kakuzu to lean down and bite the thread loose. The end moved on its own, tucking down into her skin.  
"You're done," he stated.  
"Thanks," Sika replied, looking down to examine his work. "I don't have any feeling in it, though."  
"You will. Give it a minute," Kakuzu grunted, and then he stood up. He paced across the room, over to a table where he'd laid the severed head. He picked it up and carried it across the room, to the door. He thumped his way down the steps just like he had earlier, leaving the building to collect his bounty without saying shit to anyone.  
"Fucking typical prick," Hidan snorted. Yeah. That was about right.  
"He didn't dismiss me, though," Sika shrugged. "Wanna hang out?"  
"Yeah."  
"What do you wanna do?" Sika asked.  
"I don't know about you but I'm fucking exhausted," Hidan rolled over onto his back, sighing deeply.  
"Well," Sika drawled, "this was a bathhouse I think, they've got to have something to lay down on."  
They both sat there for the next five minutes, both too lazy to move. Finally, Sika stood up and went to the far side of the room. The whole wall of the building was all closets, and Sika went to the first one and opened it. She repeated the process with every one of them that didn't have a lock. There were some things. No bed roll, but there were some robes and a sheet and some other linen things that were easily thrown down on the floor to make it a little softer.  
Hidan ambled over and took up the left side, leaving Sika to lay on the right. She curled up on her side facing the open wall, watching the cloud roll across the sky.  
"This is a shit bed," he stated plainly.  
"Yeah," Sika agreed. "Hey, Hidan?"  
"What?"  
"When we're both feeling better uh," She paused, debating on asking her question. "Do you maybe wanna fool around?"  
He shifted, probably looking her way. "How do you mean to fool around?"  
"Like," she bit her lip, "you wanna smoke some weed at my house? Or like, I dunno, grab dinner?"  
"I think we'd just better be friends," he rejected.  
Sika winced. Yeah. Yeah, she knew that was coming. "Okay."  
"We can still get dinner and smoke," he offered.  
"Okay. I mean it was silly of me to ask I guess I just felt," she paused, "lonely."  
"We're shinobi, lonely is a pretty common theme," he pointed out. "But we're different."  
Sika swallowed hard. "Yeah."

* * *

When Sika arrived home, the first thing she did was go right for her chair and light up. The smoke filled her lungs with herb and she puffed on her joint a few moments before she pinned it in the corner of her mouth and stepped out of her room. She needed a bath pretty bad but it was also dinner time.  
Kasumi almost had a heart attack when she stepped into the dining room.  
"What happened to you?!" She exclaimed.  
"I went to work," Sika replied.  
"Do you work at a slaughter house?" Kasumi asked, mostly sarcastic.  
Sika swayed back and forth and gave her a noncommitmental hand gesture. "You could call it that."  
"You have got to be kidding me! This is grizzly, this is gross! You smell, you're covered in, I don't even know-" Kasumi flew into another fit. Sika elected to ignore her.  
Sika came around the table and grabbed a bowl of- wait, was that miso soup, again? She grabbed her bowl of soup laid out for her and started piling extra on top of it and in the broth. She didn't even glance at either of her fathers.  
"Sika?" Sika's blood ran cold and for just a moment she paused. Suta. Shit.  
"Yes?" She looked up at her youngest brother, who;' eyes were locked on her, large as dinner plates.  
"What happened to your arm?" The eleven-year-old asked innocently. Sika didn't take her eyes off of him. The smoke from her joint rolled into the air.  
"Uhh," she deadpanned. "I uh, cut it? But my friend er, my coworker set it straight for me."  
There. She hadn't lied and she spared him the gorey details. The boy looked puzzled but he didn't speak. Hurriedly, Sika finished piling food into her bowl and retreated the room for her bedroom.

* * *

Ayye, so sorry I disappered with this story for over a year. I don't know when i'll be updating again. i've sort of moved fandoms but I still like Naruto.


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